


Two Tributes from the North

by pinkgeranium



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Mash-up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:17:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 22,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2786327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkgeranium/pseuds/pinkgeranium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok I couldn't get this idea out of my head: what would happen if my two favourite characters from A Song of Ice And Fire/Game of Thrones were tributes in The Hunger Games?  So I am having a go at writing it.</p><p>So welcome, welcome to the 74th Annual Hunger Games in Westeros! (Basically I have renamed Panem Westeros).<br/>The setting and some characters are the property of Suzanne Collins.<br/>Some characters and some setting are the property of George R. R. Martin.<br/>I fear the creations of both authors are being used in a way they never intended but it is all done out of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Reaping

**Author's Note:**

> Sansa has been aged up (16) & Sandor aged down (18) so they are of reaping age.

_No not her.  That Trinket woman did not just call her name.  I only thought I heard it_.  I look across to where she is standing with the other 16 year-old girls and I see they are all staring at her.  She looks pale.  I look up at the podium and Mayor Stark’s face looks grey.

“Sansa Stark!  Where are you?  Come forward please.”  Effie Trinket’s gaiety seems more forced than usual.  She knows the Mayor’s family better than she knows anyone in District 12 except for Haymitch – that old drunk.

I am not imagining it.  The most beautiful girl in District 12 just got reaped.  I watch as the other girls in her section move aside so she can pass.  Her auburn hair glints in the sunlight as she walks to the front.  An unusual hair colour here in twelve, most of the merchant class has fair hair but she has her mother’s shade.

If they’d reaped the younger sister she might have had a chance, but Sansa has none.  I know it.  She is too gentle, too kind.

I watch Effie Trinket take Sansa's hand as she steps onto the podium.

“And now for the boys.” She drops Sansa’s hand and walks across the podium to the other reaping ball, removes a folded slip of paper, crosses back to the microphone. 

I see all the colour drain from her face even beneath her heavy make up.  She swallows several times and seems to struggle to get the name out “Brandon Stark.”

Catelyn Stark’s hands go to her mouth and the mayor seems to sway in his seat.  I can hear sobbing coming from the girls' section. I turn to look behind me and see the older Stark boys Jon and Robb clinging to each other where they stand with the rest of District 12's population watching this horror show.  It is only Bran’s first reaping and both his older brothers are past reaping age.  I know they would volunteer for him if they could.  _How can I let the Starks lose two children when they have been so good to me?  How can I let Sansa Stark go off to die?_ I don’t know I’ve made the decision until I hear myself speak.

“I volunteer!  I volunteer as tribute.”  I say. 

There is complete silence.  Every head turns in my direction.  I see Catelyn Stark’s hands fall from her mouth to her heart and the Mayor’s eyes scanning the crowd. 

The other eighteen year-old boys move aside so I can walk to the aisle.  It is then that the three Stark’s on the podium can see me. 

“How exciting! District Twelve’s first volunteer!” Effie Trinket gushes and then she sees me. I hear her gasp as she inexpertly covers the microphone.  “There’s no way that boy is 18.”

“He is,” the microphone is sensitive enough that I can hear Sansa answer her.  “I’m at school with him.  He only just turned 18, this is his last reaping.”

“And that face!” Effie continues.

“He was in an accident!” Sansa hisses.

A murmur is coming from the crowd now . 

I see the moment Effie’s face changes.  When she realises that I am 18, and I am big and scary looking. When she realises that District Twelve might have a chance of winning the games this year.

“What’s his name?”  she hisses to Sansa.

“Sandor Clegane.”

“I give you District Twelve’s first volunteer Sandor Clegane!”  Effie bellows into the uncovered microphone as I mount the steps.   She squeezes my hand, just as she did Sansa’s.  “Now the two of you shake hands” she instructs and we do.

“I present to you your tributes Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane.”  To the credit of everyone in the district no one claps.  No one cares much for me but everyone loves the mayor and his wife and every parent in the crowd will feel the horror of two children from the same family getting reaped.  District 12’s parents will be holding their children extra tight tonight.

We are whisked into the Justice building to say our goodbyes.  Really they should have just taken me directly to the train – no one is coming to say goodbye to me.

I am surprised when the door opens and Arya and Bran Stark enter the room.

“Shouldn’t you be saying goodbye to your sister?”

“Peacekeepers wouldn’t let us all in at once so we said we’d come and see you first.” It’s Arya who speaks.  She could pass for a seam child with her colouring except her skin is a might too pale.

“Thank you for volunteering for me Sandor.” Bran says, “you saved my life.”  I don’t doubt it, at 12 the boy is built like a bird and he’s always been a dreamy kid besides, dreamier than either of his sisters.

“Don’t worry about it kid,” I say, “your father saved my life.  I couldn’t let him watch two of his kids die in the arena.”

Arya sits down right next to me, too close for my comfort “Ok Bran, you’ve said what you needed to say – now go over there for a minute so I can have a private talk with Sandor.” She points to the furthest corner of the room as she speaks.  _What can Arya Stark possibly have to talk to me about?_ When she speaks her voice is a whisper and her mouth is so close to my ear I can feel her breath “I’m sorry.  I should have volunteered for her.  I would’ve had a better chance of surviving but I didn’t even think of it until you volunteered for Bran.”  I don’t know how to answer this.  She is a little thing but she’s wily.  I can’t pretend I didn’t think she would be more suited to the arena.  “I know why you volunteered.  It wasn’t to save Bran or to repay my father’s kindness.  I see the way you look at her.”  I remain silent.  “I know what you’re thinking now, but things will change when you’re in the arena.  You’re a survivor.   When it comes down to it, you’ll choose to survive.”

“Are you telling me you won’t care if your sister dies?”

“Oh I’ll care, but I won’t blame you for it, not if you come back.  You have a real chance of winning.  Even that idiot Effie sees it.  The District needs the extra rations and with you as a mentor instead of that drunken arsehole some of our future tributes might even survive. ”

“You said I’m a survivor.  How do you know ?”

“Because I’m one too.  That’s the real reason I didn’t volunteer. My father’s coming to see you next.  Don’t make him any foolish promises.”

The Peacekeepers come in then to tell us our time is up.  Arya gives me a quick hug and Bran runs over from the corner of the room to wrap his arms around me too.  I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me.  The group home doesn’t offer much in the way of affection.

As Arya predicted my next visitor is the mayor himself.

“Catelyn wanted to come with me but Rickon is hysterical after saying goodbye to his sister.  We both want to thank you for what you’ve done for Bran, for our family.”

“You saved my life twice, I’m returning the favour.” I can see the Mayor is puzzled. He remembers the first time well enough, the weeks I spent lying on his kitchen table while his wife mixed first herbs and snow and then ointments to put on my burns, and his beautiful daughter fed me soup by the spoonful.

“The first time when you had your wife treat my burns and the second when you sent me to the group home rather than back to my brother.”

“So I was right?  It was him.  Why did you never say?  I told you I was prepared to bring in the Peacekeepers.”

“Yes it was Gregor who burned me but he was still my brother.”  I look at Mayor Stark as he shakes his head and I am reminded of how he came to the group home to tell me in person when Gregor was killed in a mine explosion.  He has always looked out for me in his way.

“You’ve given me back one child.  I won’t ask you to give me another, not when I know it would mean your death.  As mayor I get to see unedited footage of what goes down in the arena.  I’ve seen what the careers do to pretty girls from the poorer districts.  I don’t want that to happen to my daughter.  Sansa can’t win.  She is too sweet, too kind.  Kill her early, kill her quick and don’t let her see it coming. I’ll make sure the whole district knows I asked you to do it.  No one will blame you for it when you come home.”

I want to tell Mayor Stark he doesn’t need to ask me for anything.  I have already decided that Sansa is coming home. But I keep silent.  Best not to promise him anything in case I fail.


	2. The Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all of you who left comments & kudos. Sorry it has been awhile since I updated as I have been on holiday. I hope to up-date weekly from now on.

_**SANSA** _

I see Sandor as soon as I step out into the hallway.  I run to him and throw my arms around him to thank him for Bran’s life. Strangely, I am glad that it is Sandor who will be with me in the arena.  It feels wrong to be glad about this but I know he would never hurt me.  It takes him a moment to respond to my hug.  He is never very comfortable with displays of affection or gratitude.  I remember the time I tried to thank him for protecting me when some older boys at school were being difficult and he ended up making me so angry I stormed off without thanking him at all.

He’s a strange one, as my mother would say. Even before he was burned no one would have called him handsome, but he definitely has something.  His sheer size makes him intimidating to be around, and despite his rough way of speaking he can be strangely kind when he thinks no one is watching and as long as you never thank him for it.  He is a mass of contradictions.  His words are harsh but his hands are gentle.  The day I fell and split my lip at school when I was only twelve, he wiped away the blood, and when I broke my ankle two years later he was the one who carried me home to my mother.

But offer him more than a simple thank you.  Try to tell him he is brave or strong or kind and you will see the other side of him. The angry, snarling side.  I don’t understand why he can’t listen to anything nice about himself, but that’s just how he is and most of us have learnt to accept it.

This must be the longest hug he has ever allowed anyone.  Well I suppose we are both going to our deaths.  Maybe he will allow himself a little comfort now; or more likely he is trying to comfort me.

“There, there Little Bird, you’re all right.” He’s called me that ever since those weeks he lay on our kitchen table as my mother fought to save his life.  He said I tilted my head like a little bird while I was feeding him soup. I told him if I was a little bird then he was my baby bird but somehow that nickname never stuck. It doesn’t stop me from using it now though.

“Yeah baby bird; I’m feeling ok for someone who’s going to be dead in three weeks tops.  How are you doing?”

“About the same.”

“Thanks for what you did for Bran.”

“I owe your father my life.”  He says this as though saving Bran wasn’t even a choice, but I know it was.  I let it go.  If I try to tell him he was brave we will just get into an argument and I don’t want to argue with him, not today.

“Time to go.”  One of the Peacekeepers says, and I suddenly realise they are clustered around us both in the hallway of the Justice Building.  I release my arms and step back from Sandor, feeling his arms loosen from behind me as I do so.  How odd, that I break away first.

The Peacekeepers surround us as they lead us out of the Justice Building and into the car that will take us to the train.  Once we are together in the backseat of the car I reach across the seat and take Sandor’s hand in mine.  He doesn’t pull away.  He must be more upset than I thought.  I see Effie Trinket who is sitting in the front passenger seat glance back at us for a moment with a puzzled look on her face.

* * *

**_SANDOR_ **

When we arrive at the station Sansa lets go of my hand so we can get out of the car.  I feel the absence of her palm pressed into mine as we leave the car to walk across the platform and board  the train. Effie takes the lead down the train's corridor, not stopping until we come to a carriage that is furnished like a living and dinning room, with a table and chairs, plush couches and the biggest TV screen I have ever seen.

In fact I have never seen anything like this before.  The luxury of it.  Carpet so soft I can feel it through my boots.  I am dazzled by the colours, by the quantity and variety of food that is laid out for us on the sideboard. Sansa looks at everything with wide eyes and when I sink down into one of the couches she sits down beside me and takes my hand again.  I always thought holding a girl’s hand would feel warm and clammy, but Sansa’s fingers are smooth and cool as she slides them between mine, bringing our clasped hands to rest on my leg so the back of her hand rests on my thigh just above the knee. 

If I wasn’t going to die soon I’d like to think her hugging me and holding my hand today mean something, but I know they don’t.  Sansa Stark is just trying to comfort us both.  She thinks we are all ready dead and she is grateful to me for sparing her brother our fate.

Effie switches on the TV so we can view the replay of the reapings from the other districts.  I look at our fellow tributes paying special attention to the Career Tributes from One and Two who train in special academies and volunteer when they turn 18.  The Tributes from One are gorgeous as usual – the boy has golden hair, green eyes and fat red lips.  The girl is slender and stunning, and her dress has a golden rose embroidered on it.  The Tributes from Two seem almost rabid as usual.  There is a boy from Eleven who looks like a contender.  The girl from Eleven gives me pause though, she is a little thing, only 12 and she has scars on one side of her face just like I do, although hers are not so severe.  Finally we see District Twelve’s ceremony.  Sansa's face fills the screen when Bran’s name is called, and I see the look of relief when I volunteer to take his place. I glance over at Effie and see she looks mortified when she realises the microphone caught every comment she made to Sansa while I was walking up to join them on the podium.

“Well,” she says flicking of the TV, “I’m surprised Haymitch hasn’t joined us yet.  I think I’ll just go and find him.  Feel free to help yourselves to something to eat while I’m gone.”  She gestures to the sideboard and exits the carriage from a different door to the one we came in by.

* * *

**_HAYMITCH_ **

I open one eye and see Effie standing above me.  In the name of the gods! I am lying on top of my bed in my own sleeping quarters.  Is nowhere safe?  Why can’t she leave me in peace to sleep it off?

“Aren’t you even going to talk to them tonight?” she asks curtly.

“Who’d we get?”

“You don’t remember the reaping at all?”

“Nah.  You know I always try to get drunk so I can block it out.”

“Please Haymitch, you don’t need to _try_ to get drunk, you’re _always_ drunk.”

“So who’d we get?” I am hoping like hell it’s not like last year when I took two 12 year-olds to the Capital.  Both of them died on their first day in the arena, I try to think of that as a blessing, some days I even succeed.

“District Twelve had its first ever volunteer.” Effie is putting on a good show of sounding excited.

“Fuck Trinket at least make up something believable.”  There is not a single kid in District Twelve stupid enough to volunteer for The Games.  In the past 73 years District Twelve has had exactly two victors.  In Twelve the words tribute and dead go together like the words coal and dust.  “Who got reaped Eff?”

“Two of Mayor Stark’s children.”  I goggle at her.  Two children from the same family, that is unheard of and it makes me wonder who Mayor Stark pissed off. 

“I thought both the Stark boys were too old.”

“It was one of the younger ones, he just turned 12.”

“Fuck.”

“Language Haymitch!  But as I was trying to tell you, in a surprising turn of events some rough giant of a boy volunteered to take his place.”

Some suicidal boy - I may as well write him off now.  Both the Stark girls are reaping age.  I don’t have a lot to do with the district but I kind of recognise the older Stark kids from my dealings with the mayor before I got to be such a drunk Catelyn Stark refused to let me into her house.

“Which of the girls?  Stark has two of them.”

“The older one, Sansa.  The red-head.”

“Ok, I want to see them.”

...

Effie comes with me to the tech car. All the public areas of the train are covered by CCTV.  I have the tech bring up the feed from the lounge carriage on the big screen.  The result is a bit grainy but I can see what I need to.

The girl is pretty enough to be a Tribute from District One.  Pity she lacks the fighting skills.  The boy has the type of build favoured by District Two.  He’s built like a building – even seated you can tell he’s tall and his shoulders are broad and his biceps are straining against his threadbare shirt.  But his face is even more intimidating – the left side of it a twisted mess of scar tissue.

“You know if we could just combine the two of them – we’d have the perfect tribute,” Effie twitters.  “Her looks and his strength, sponsors would eat it up.  Of course a bit of training would help too.”

Something else catches my eye and I squint at the screen to try and make it out, “What are they doing with their hands?”

“Oh they’re holding hands. They’ve been doing it pretty much since they got in the car.” Effie says dismissively. 

In 23 years my tributes have never held hands, generally they try to avoid looking each other in the eye so they can pretend they aren’t about to be placed in a situation where they will be expected to kill each other. I feel the ghost of an idea forming in the back of my brain.  I hope it will still be there when I sober up.

“I want to meet them now.” I turn on my heel and stride down the corridor to the lounge carriage.  Effie follows.

...

Both tributes look up when Effie and I enter the carriage.

“Hello Haymitch, I hope you’re feeling better.”  The girl says, even prettier in the flesh than she was on the monitor.

“He wasn’t sick he was just drunk.” The boy’s voice is a growl and he is even bigger in person.

“I know that.  It was polite to ask if he felt better after what happened this morning.”  I am not sure what happened.  I guess I'll need to watch the replay later.

“Don’t worry about me Sweetheart.  I’m fine.  You I know, who the hell’s he?”

“He’s Sandor Clegane.  Sandor this is Haymitch.” You’d think she was doing introductions at a tea party. The size of the boy makes sense now.

“Gregor’s brother?”

“Yes.” The boy growls, looking like thunder.  I had forgotten Gregor even had a brother.  The boy must have gone to the Group Home after Gregor died.

“Yes, but he’s nothing like Gregor.” Sansa says quickly.

“Sure looks a hell of a lot like him: big, ugly, brutish.”  I brace myself for the blow, Gregor would have hit anyone who said something like that.  The blow that comes is not as forceful as I expected, it is a stinging slap on my cheek because it’s the girl who hits me.

“You’re our mentor you’re supposed to be helping us not insulting us!”

“I’ve no help to give you girl. You’re dead. You were dead the moment Effie read out your name.”

“I know that,” she snaps, “but he’s not.  You could help him.  You won this thing once, you must know how to do it.” I recognise what she is trying to tell me, what Effie was trying to tell me earlier, that this boy has a chance.  For the first time in 24 years I might have a contender. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB. I decided to go with the film and have only Districts One & Two as career districts.


	3. Breakfast on the Tribute Train

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments & kudos - so nice to know people are reading and enjoying. This chapter is all from Sandor's point of view - hope you enjoy!

I wake to silence and soft light coming through the windows of my sleeping compartment.  This so called ‘compartment’ is bigger than some of the dormitories at the group home.  I have never woken up to silence.  Or at least if I have I can’t remember it.  I can’t remember sleeping in a bed before either.  The beds in the group home are too small for me so I usually bed down on the floor with a pillow and a couple of blankets.  It gets cold in the winter, down there alone on the bare boards when all the other kids are usually two or three to a bed for warmth but someone usually takes pity on me and tosses me an extra blanket or two. 

I slept well which is kind of strange given that as of yesterday I have - at best - three weeks left to live.  You’d think I wouldn’t want to waste time sleeping, but I need to get as much sleep as I can before the arena.  Eat as much as I can too.  Haymitch is a pretty hopeless mentor, if he didn’t even think to tell us that.  Plenty of rest, plenty of food.  We might not get much of an opportunity for either once we’re in the arena; and coming from Twelve where everyone is half-starved we’re all ready at a disadvantage.

I climb out of bed and throw on the same clothes I wore for the reaping yesterday.  There are drawers in this compartment stuffed full with clothes in a variety of sizes but as per usual nothing fits me. 

Now it’s time to eat.  I make my way back to the lounge carriage where we spent most of our time yesterday.  It looks like even more food has been spread out on the sideboard and the table has been set for four.  Effie and Haymitch are all ready sitting at the table.  Effie’s enormous plate is almost empty, nothing on it except a piece of unfamiliar fruit which seems to have been cut in half.  Haymitch’s plate is piled high.  I guess he managed to work up one hell of an appetite yesterday: getting drunk, falling off the stage at the Reaping, and failing to mentor us.

 I don’t even recognise most of the food in front of me but I grab the biggest plate I can find and load it up with anything and everything that smells good.  Yesterday night after dinner was the first time in my life I ever felt full and I mean to repeat the experience.

I take my plate over to the table and take the empty seat next to Haymitch figuring Sansa – when she eventually shows up - will be more comfortable next to Effie.

“Good morning,” Effie almost sings at me.  I give her a nod.  When I nod at Haymitch he acknowledges it with a raised eyebrow.

“Good to see you eating boy,” he finally says when I am half-way through my plate of food.

“If you were a half-decent mentor you would be telling us to eat up and sleep plenty while we have the chance.”

“Damn it Effie!  Didn’t I tell you to remind me to tell them just that before we had dinner last night?”  Effie purses her lips and rolls her eyes.

“No Haymitch.  The last time you asked me to remind you to give advice to tributes was approximately ten years ago.”  Clearly I am not the only one at this table who thinks Haymitch is a shit mentor. Effie is giving him what I imagine is as close as she gets to the evil eye.

Haymitch just laughs and says, “et tu Brute?” then he turns towards me. “You want advice boy? Two things you need to do to win the games.  Stay alive and make people like you.  You’re making me want to kill you, I think that makes you zero for two so far.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to lift your game a bit Haymitch,” Effie says quietly, “you used to be good at this.” I almost laugh but Haymitch beats me to it and something about the way he laughs makes my own laugh die in my throat.

“Did I Effie?  Then how come I never brought one tribute home?”

“Because there’s a limit to what you can do with a couple of half-starved twelve-year-olds who’ve never held a weapon.” I stop eating to stare at Effie.  Effie Trinket with her out-landish capital clothes, her over-the top wigs and garish make-up and I wonder if there is a human being somewhere under all  that crap.

Effie hasn’t taken her eyes off Haymitch but he is watching me. 

“What do I get in return if I lift my game boy?” he asks, and for a moment I think about telling him everything, here in front of Effie, my nebulous plan, asking them both to help me fill out the details.

“I’ll give you a victor. But you have to lift your game for both of us, me and Sansa.  We’re going in as a team like the Careers do.”

I see Effie shoot a look at me and I half-expect Haymitch to tell me to forget about Sansa, that she’s a liability, and I have an argument all prepared

“You ever held a weapon boy?”

“Yes.”  I say and I can see he and Effie are both surprised, so I tell them everything I can do that might be of use in the arena.  I need Haymitch to believe I can win. “My father taught me to hunt before he died.  There’s never enough food at the Group Home even with the tesserae so I kept it up; brought in game for the stew pot.  I can set snares, I’m a fair shot with a bow, and I know how to use a knife.  I was school wrestling champion-” I pause to do some calculations in my head, “the last four years. I was beating 18 year-olds when I was fourteen.  I’m quicker than I look.”  I’ve had to be, Gregor always had the advantage with size and strength so I had to cultivate speed to get away from him.

“Well I’ll be...” Haymitch hisses through his teeth.  “So, what does Red bring to this party?”

“You said I needed to make people like me.  I’m no good at that, but everyone loves her...”

“Everyone?” Haymitch quips and the table rocks slightly as Haymitch jerks slightly in his chair.  I think Effie just kicked him under the table.

“Everyone.  Plus she knows about plants from helping her mom: what’s poison, what’s edible, what’s medicine.  She’s athletic too: fast like I am but light enough to climb a tree; and-” I pause to steel myself for the lie “I promised her father I’d look out for her for as long as I could.”

“What’s with you and the Starks huh?  You volunteer for his son and he asks you to look out for his daughter in the arena?  He ask you to die for her too?”

“No.”  I say because that part of the plan is all mine.

 


	4. The Capital - Part One - The Remake Centre

The Capital is nothing like what I expected – even though as the Mayor’s daughter we get Capital TV at home so I probably had a better idea of what it would be like than most of District Twelve.  Not that I have seen much so far – just the train station, a few streets from the inside of the car and the remake centre itself. 

All the buildings are tall, taller than anything in District Twelve; and they shine clean and bright in the sunlight, nothing stays clean for long in Twelve because of the ever-present coal dust.  My half-brother Jon says it’s worse in the Seam - where he lives now he’s grown up - but it’s bad enough in town. I wonder what Sandor thinks of it all.  He hasn’t said much, but then - I don’t know why I’m surprised - he’s never been much of a conversationalist.

He let me take his hand again when we got off the train this morning.   I was disappointed when they separated us as soon as we arrived at the Remake Centre but it didn’t take me long to realise why they had to.  It would have been mortifying to have been stripped naked in front of Sandor, because that’s what these three strangers (my prep team) did as soon as they’d introduced themselves.  After they stripped me they scrubbed me until my skin was redder than my hair; and then they proceeded to rip out every hair on my body – leaving only the hair on my head and part of each eyebrow.  It hurt.  A lot.  Then they used a blade to cut the dead skin off my feet and rubbed some greasy cream all over my skin.  I feel like a fowl being prepared for roasting but I am actually being prepared for my stylist. I wonder what they are doing to Sandor.

My prep team have tattoos on their skin and crazy clothes and hair – even crazier than Effie Trinket’s.  I hope they don’t plan to make me look like some capital freak.  My mother would not approve of tattoos and I like my hair the way it is - my fiancée Harry told me once it’s the colour of sunset.  I can’t stand Harry usually, but when he said that I almost liked him - not enough to forgive him for getting Delly pregnant though. If there is a plus side to dying soon it’s that I won’t have to marry Harry now.  I bet Mom is spitting tacks though, she’ll never get a child of hers married into the Hardyng family now – there’s no way Harry will take Arya in my place.

Finally the prep team wrap me in some weird paper gown and leave me alone to wait for my stylist. I stare at the ceiling and try to imagine what my family are doing now.  Robb will be at the Mayor’s office helping our father, Jon will be down the mines, Arya and the little boys will be at school.  My Mom will probably be drinking tea with Mrs Hardying mourning the loss of the marriage alliance. I will never see any of them again.  I will never see Robb and Jeyne’s baby. I won’t get to watch Bran and Rickon grow up.  Mom will never again sit behind me and brush my hair as she always liked to in the evenings. 

Tears are just starting to form in my eyes when I hear the door open with a whoosh and approaching footsteps.

“How are you?” asks a soft voice.  I blink my tears back and look up to see a man looking down at me.  He is simply dressed for the Capital, all in black; his hair seems to be its natural colour and it has not been sculpted into some ridiculous up-do.  He has just a touch of gold dust on his eyelids and he is very handsome.  Maybe the handsomest man I have ever seen in the flesh.

“As well as I can be thank you.” I wonder if he is some kind of servant sent to bring me to my stylist.

“My name is Cinna, I’m your stylist.”  I think my mouth must drop open in surprise, because he is so not what I expected. 

“I’m pleased to meet you Cinna.  My name is Sansa, Sansa Stark.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you Sansa Stark.”  I wonder what sort of costume this understated man is going to put me in for the parade.  Is he so understated because he saves all his outrageousness for the clothes he creates or will he actually dress me in something tasteful?  As long as he doesn’t cover my naked body in coal dust – which they did to Twelve’s Tributes several years ago – I will consider myself lucky.

“Come eat lunch with me Sansa and we’ll talk about your costume for the parade.  I have an idea I think you’re going to love.”

* * *

Haymitch told us this morning that we should obey our stylists in all things.  I found it odd that he gave us any advice at all after how he behaved yesterday.  In fact this morning he was a font of advice by comparison; but I can’t let this go.  I have to say something.  Cinna’s designs are beautiful but they will create a huge problem for us.

“I’m so sorry Cinna.  Your design is beautiful but I just can’t...the flames...  I’m afraid of fire.”  I’m not of course but I can’t let anyone here know that Sandor fears fire, they can’t know his weakness if he is to win.

“They’re not real flames Sansa, it’s not real fire.  There is absolutely no heat.  We could give it a trial run first if you like, make sure you’re comfortable.”

“I suppose.” I say reluctantly. “I’d be willing to try it if Sandor was there with me.  He could try out his costume too, you know the two of us in a safe environment. That way I’d know his costume was safe too.”

“If you think it will help,” Cinna says.

* * *

When Sandor arrives in the room Cinna has chosen for us to try our outfits it’s obvious from the loose threads that his has undergone considerable recent alteration.  No one was bargaining for a tribute as large as he is.  How could they when most men aren’t as large as he is?

A woman is with him, she introduces herself to me as Portia, Sandor’s stylist before she goes to join Cinna on the other side of the room.

Sandor quirks his eyebrows at me and leans forward to whisper in my ear.

“Strange that the little bird should be afraid of fire when she’s made of it.” He snags a curl of my fiery hair between two of his fingers and holds it out in front of me so we can both see it.

“You know I’m not afraid of fire.” I whisper back.

“So the little bird tries to pay me back for saving her brother.”

“It’s going to take more than this to repay you for that.  I hope it won’t be too awful for you but I thought it would make the parade easier.  I didn’t want them to light us up for the first time in front of all of Westeros.”

“Clever girl.”

Cinna and Portia come back to join us then and they show us the buttons sewn into our clothes to activate the flames. 

“Is it safe for me to hold Sandor’s hand when we’re on fire?  I think it would make me feel calmer.”  Cinna tells me it is perfectly safe and as though to prove it he and Portia do not even step away from us when they tell us to press the buttons.  I let out a small shriek in time to cover Sandor’s gasp which he quickly turns into a cough. His hand tightens in mine.

The flames are licking over us both, over Cinna and Portia too, but there is no heat and they make no sound.  They are not fire itself but only its ghost. I slide my eyes to Sandor’s wondering if we should stop or if he needs to do this a little longer.  He blinks once, twice and I tell Cinna I’ve had enough and I think I will be able to do this after all.

* * *

So an hour later we are in the basement of the Remake Centre beside the chariot that will take us through the streets of the Capital to the Tribute Centre where we will live for the next week while we prepare for The Games.

 “Are you going to be Ok?”  I ask Sandor once more, as he helps me into the chariot. “Cinna keeps promising me our suits are totally safe.”

“I’ll be fine, I’ve no looks left to lose. You on the other hand are in trouble.” I laugh and the sound is so out of place here that everyone turns to look at us.  The boys from District One and Two are almost staring – they must feel intimidated by Sandor. Sandor glares at them until they look away and then he climbs into the chariot with me.  “So will you hold my hand in the parade little bird?” he asks holding his hand out to me and I grab it eagerly. 

Within minutes we are riding through the streets of the Capital in flames.


	5. The Capital - Part Two- The Training Centre

_SANSA_

The parade finishes at the Training Centre where Haymitch, Effie and our stylists are waiting for us. Even Haymitch seems happy and Effie is positively incandescent as they guide us to the lift.  We have the lift to ourselves and Effie begins gushing about how everyone is going to be talking about us now and how lucky we are that Twelve gets the Penthouse.  I don’t know what a penthouse is but I am guessing it’s a good thing. Sandor hasn’t let go of my hand and I am kind of glad as I have never actually been in a lift before.  There is one in the Justice building back in Twelve but no one ever uses it in case the power goes out – Dad told us that a secretary got stuck in there for two days once, back when his father was mayor.  They used to drop food down the shaft to her.  Arya had asked why they didn’t just pull her up the shaft with a rope and father had laughed which had made us both suspect it was just a story he had made up to keep people out of the lift.

We step out of the lift and if I thought the train was opulent; it has nothing on this place.  We are standing in a combined living-dining area and judging by the views from the floor-to ceiling windows on two sides (and the fact the lift goes no higher than level 12) we are on the top floor of the building. I can see the sun blinking off the other skyscrapers.  Even more food is laid out for us on an even larger sideboard.  The first thing Effie does is cross to an enormous TV screen and switch it on so we can watch the parade. I look across at Sandor and he raises an eyebrow at me before he leads me to the couch. I sit down beside him and rest the back of the hand that is still clasped in his on his thigh.

Once we appear in the distance most of the parade coverage is focused on us.  The announcers are babbling on about our eye-catching costumes, unlike anything ever seen in The Games.  They talk about how District Twelve has pulled out all the stops this year, they talk about my beauty and Sandor’s obvious strength, how he volunteered for my brother, there is even a close up of our clasped hands. When the coverage finishes Effie pushes a button and the screen clicks off.

“This is a great beginning, but make no mistake the hard work starts tomorrow,” Haymitch is back to his surly self, he doesn’t bother to look either of us in the face.  Instead his gaze seems to be focused on our hands where they rest clasped together on Sandor’s thigh.

“What’s our strategy?” Sandor asks.

“You go into this together like a team.  Use the time in training to learn skills you don’t know while you conceal the ones you have from the other tributes; and keep on with the hand-holding.  It sends a message.”

* * *

_SANDOR_

The next morning we eat breakfast and head down in the lift for our first training session.  Sansa and I are both wearing a black shirt and black pants.  The shirt has 12 emblazoned on it, front and back – at least it fits. Sansa reaches for my hand when the lift gets to about half-way so we step out into a basement lobby filled with the other tributes hand-in-hand.  The looks we get, especially from the Careers are not friendly.

* * *

About half-way through the morning session I feel a soft hand on my bicep, I turn expecting to see Sansa but the girl in front of me is from District One, all golden hair and big eyes.

“Hey,” she says “I’m Margaery.”

“Hey.” I say. For once I don’t fight the smile that twists my scars, even though I know it makes me look more grotesque than usual. Margaery doesn’t even flinch.  They trained her well in One.

“Hands off One.  We’re not supposed to touch other tributes in training.” Sansa says, I don’t know where she came from but she is now at my side and her gaze is fixed on Margaery.

“We’re not supposed to _fight_ each other in training, Twelve.  It may have escaped your notice but I’m not trying to fight him.  I’m here to make him an offer.”

“Whatever you’re offering he’s not interested.”

“You afraid to let him speak for himself Twelve?”

“No, just trying to save you from embarrassing yourself.”

Margaery gives me a dazzling smile, “Come see me when your lady lets you off the leash,” she says as she sashays away.

Sansa is glaring after her.

I lean towards her and whisper close to her ear “Don’t worry, I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the home we called it seduce and destroy - the tactic the District One girls use to win.  Every now and again some guy’s stupid enough to fall for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“They pick a strong guy, convince him he’s everything they desire, use him to kill the other tributes and then murder him in his sleep.”

“Truly?  A girl can just pretend to like a guy and get him to kill for her?”

“Yeah.  Teenage boys may be physically stronger than teenage girls but teenage boys also have one in-built weakness:  teenage girls. The girls from One are trained to use that to their advantage.”

Sansa looks thoughtful. “So you’re saying a girl could win even if she isn’t strong?”

“Yes.  The girls from One have proven it.”


	6. The Capital - Part Three - The Training Center continued...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor receives an offer, Sansa gets emotional. 
> 
> Warning for coarse language in this chapter.

**_SANDOR_ **

After dinner that night Haymitch sends Sansa to her room and drags me up to the roof.

I never even knew we had roof access, another perk of the penthouse I suppose, one that Effie never got round to telling us about.

“Why you bringing me up here?  Gonna throw me off?” I have no idea what I’ve done to piss Haymitch off but I can’t think of another reason he’d bring me here.  However I doubt he has the strength to throw me over.  He might be a fully grown man but I have height and weight on my side.

“This is the only place I can be sure there’s no surveillance,” he says.  “I brought you here because the Careers want you.”

I give him a look, unsure of what he means.

“They want you to join the Career Pack.”

I shrug, “No one from Twelve’s ever joined the pack.”

“No one from Twelve’s ever been asked,” Haymitch snaps.

“Will they take Sansa?”

“No, just you.”

“Well I don’t want to be on their _team_.”

Haymitch shifts slightly on his feet. “Is there something going on? Between you and the girl?” 

“What do you think?”

“I think the girl’s been clinging to you like coal dust since the train. And you don’t seem to mind it.  A boy from the group home who volunteered in place of the mayor’s son?  Explain to me why you did that again.”  For a man I have never seen sober, Haymitch certainly doesn’t miss much.  “I heard there was a bit of a scene down in the training center earlier.”

“It wasn’t a big deal.”

“The female mentor from one lodged a formal protest.”

“Sansa never touched her tribute!”

“I know.  I watched the relevant footage with her mentor and she withdrew her protest. It was clear from that footage what her tribute’s game is, but what’s yours.”

“I’m giving you your victor remember, that’s my game.”

“Are you playing the girl?  Letting her get close so you can put the knife in quick?”

“No!”

“Is she playing you?”

“Sansa wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t she?  You’d be surprised what someone will do when their life is on the line.  What they’re capable of.  The girl’s looks are an asset. Might be the only asset she has in the arena.  She’s all ready used them to ensnare you, she might try the same trick with One and Two.  They’ve both been giving her the eye. Saw that on the replay too.”

“Sansa has not ensnared me with her looks, she didn’t even look like that when I-”

“When you what? When you what boy?” Haymitch is looking straight at me. “When. You. What?” He draws the words out leaving a long pause between each one.

“When I was ten Gregor-” I _will not_ call him my brother, _I will not_ “shoved my face in the fire. That’s how I got these,” I say gesturing to my scars, “He told me the burns would kill me, left me to die.  Mayor Stark found me, took me back to his house, got his wife to tend me.  I woke up the next morning in his warm kitchen and I thought I was dead, and that the gods had sent a copper-haired angel to feed me soup. Then she started chattering away to me about school and I realised I was still alive, but I’ve never stopped thinking of her as an angel.”

“So you’ve got it bad huh?  What about her? You’re happy enough to take what she’s offering but she’s the one reaching for you every minute of the fucking day.”

“She’s grateful for what I did for her brother; and she’s scared.  There’s been nothing more than you’ve seen I swear, nothing improper.”

Haymitch laughs “It’s Effie’s job to care about shit like that.  As far as I’m concerned you can be as improper as you like as long as you’re not fucking with each other’s heads. In Twelve we save the games for the arena.” Haymitch turns away from me then, at last the conversation is over.

“Don’t forget, you promised me a victor,” he says.

“I never promised it would be me.” I said, and that’s the truth.  I let him assume it, but I never said it.

“You can’t win the Games for someone else,” he says.

“You only say that because no one’s ever tried.”

“We don’t know that, we only know that no-one’s ever succeeded.”

* * *

**_SANSA_ **

I am lying on the bed in my room in the Training Center, I should call it my bed I suppose but my bed’s at home in Ditsrict Twelve in the room I share with Arya.  She always told me how she couldn’t wait till I grew up and moved out so she could have the bedroom to herself.  I hope she’s enjoying it now. I know it’s a mean thought for me to have, and I feel bad about it, I do because Arya never would have wanted me to be reaped for The Games.

There is a knock on my door.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Me.”

He doesn’t need to say another word, I recognise his raspy voice instantly and get up, crossing the room to open the door.  Sandor is a looming presence in the doorway.  I don’t have the light on in my room so his face is in shadow.  I want to wrap my arms around him and pull him into the room with me.  He is so big, so strong, so comforting. He is all I have of home. I settle for stepping closer to him and touching his bicep lightly, he seemed to like it when the girl from One did that earlier.  He actually smiled at her. I was surprised he wasn’t angry when I interrupted them but he seemed more amused than anything. I don’t quite understand why I reacted that way – all I know is that when I looked over and saw her touching him I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my chest got so tight, and I just _had_ to go over there and get her away from him.

“Are you ok?  What did Haymitch want?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” he says.  His white teeth flash in the dark shadow of his face.  I wonder what it would feel like to kiss him.  Would his lips be soft or rough where the scars are?  Lots of boys tried to kiss me in Twelve, before I got engaged to Harry, but he never did.  I wonder why I never kissed him, back then when we had our whole lives in front of us.  It wouldn’t be fair to kiss him now, it would just make it harder if he has to kill me.

He takes my hand and leads me down the hall, through a door and up some stairs and then we are on the roof.  In a pretty roof-top garden under a starry sky.

“Oh it’s beautiful!” I breathe, and he laughs.

“I knew a little bird would think so,” he says, and I think what a perfect place this would be for a first kiss.  _Gods I have kissing on the brain tonight. Make it stop, please make it stop before I do something stupid._

“Haymitch brought me up here to talk because there’s no surveillance.”

“Oh.” I say.  I am having trouble taking my eyes of his lips. He steps closer and he reaches out with one hand and takes hold of my chin tilting my face upwards and I think, maybe he’ll kiss me.

“Sansa, are you ok?  Did I wake you up or something?”

“Yes. No. I’m fine. Maybe a little tired,” I almost stammer.  When he steps back and removes his hand from my chin I almost fall over. To my surprise he catches me and scoops me up in his arms.

“Sansa, what in the hells is wrong?  Did you get hurt in training? Did you hit your head?”

I try to remember if I did.  If I did hit my head that could explain my strange thoughts.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I tell him and I am embarrassed to realise that I’ve started to cry. “I’m just so...so...so...” What am I? Confused? Upset? Angry? Disappointed my life is over before it’s even begun?  I am so many things.  I expect Sandor to put me down and run for Effie or one of our strange silent servants but he doesn’t.  He sits down on a bench in that pretty roof-top garden and he holds me in his arms.  I am sitting in his lap and my head is tucked into his shoulder so my tears soak into his shirt. I wrap my arms around his neck.

“It’s ok little bird,” he says as he strokes my hair “You’ve been so brave, but you don’t have to be brave for me.  I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

‘It happened to you too,” I choke out between sobs.

“No, I chose it.  I volunteered, remember.”

“Only to save my brother’s life,” my words are almost a wail, “and you’re stuck with me for a District partner and I’m such a liability and now I’m crying all over you. You must hate me for making such a fuss.”

“I don’t hate you Sansa.  I could never hate you.  We keep our brave faces for the others, ok?  For Haymitch and Effie, the trainers, the gamemakers, the other tributes and the cameras.  When it’s just you and me I want it to be real.”

“Ok,” I snuffle, the rush of tears seeming to have abated for a moment.  I hope they are gone for good.  This is so humiliating. If Sandor ever thought me remotely kissable he never will again.  _O gods why can’t I stop thinking about kissing?_   “Sandor are you afraid?” I ask, more to change the subject than because I think he will tell me the truth.

“You want to know a secret little bird?  The day of the Tribute Parade, your hand was the only thing stopping me from jumping out of that chariot and rolling round on the ground until those flames went out.”

I think about this for a moment.  “But you’re so much stronger than me, I couldn’t have kept hold of your hand if you’d wanted to let go.”

“That’s the thing though, I didn’t want to let go.”  He says, and he turns his head towards me. “I think a little bird needs her nest,” he whispers and I can feel the heat of his breath on my scalp through my hair.  He picks me up and carries me downstairs to my bedroom. He lays me down on my bed, slips off my shoes and pulls a quilt over me. “Sweet dreams little bird,” he says as he plants the softest kiss on my forehead before he leaves. It’s not the kind of kiss I wanted but I am happy to have it.

 


	7. The Capital - Part Four - The Training Centre continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, commenting and leaving kudos.
> 
> My apologies but this is a bit of a messy chapter. The inspiration fairy did not strike me this week plus I felt the need to round off their time in the training center and get to their interviews with Caesar (which are coming in the next chapter).

**_SANDOR_ **

It is early when I knock softly on Sansa’s door the following morning. When she doesn’t respond I try the door handle and it turns easily.  I step into the dim room and close the door behind me.  Sansa is stretched out asleep in the bed.  She doesn’t look like she has moved since last night.  All those tears likely wore her out. Poor little bird. I wonder how to best wake her without alarming her.

“I am so sorry for last night,” her voice from the bed is no louder than a whisper. I guess she wasn't asleep after all.

“No need to be sorry, it’s not every night I have a beautiful girl crying in my arms.”  As much as I hate to see her upset I was grateful for the opportunity to hold her like that, just once.

“Yeah I’m sure I was really attractive with red eyes and a tear-streaked face.”

“You’re always attractive. If The Games were a beauty pageant you’d be the one going home.”

“I don’t know about that, the girl from One is very pretty.”

“She certainly tries hard to be.” I say dismissively.

“So why are you here?  Did you come to check I hadn’t drowned in my own tears overnight?”

“No, we need to talk, up on the roof.  Meet me there in five minutes.” She nods and I slip out of her room; muffling a curse when I almost bump into Haymitch in the hallway outside Sansa’s door.  He raises his eyebrows at me.  I pretend not to notice and turn my back on him as I head for the door that to the roof.

...

I wait slightly longer than five minutes for Sansa to join me.  It is nice here on the roof.  The open sky above my head, just beginning to lighten to signal the beginning of a new day.  I should make the most of it.  I don’t have that many left.

Finally Sansa arrives. “I’m sorry-” she stutters and I snap at her.  “Stop apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong!”  She looks away from me and I see her teeth worrying at her lower lip. I feel like a dog for barking at her, but I can’t say I’m sorry now, it would be hypocritical.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asks quietly, still not looking at me.

“I saw you trying to learn to fight with a knife at training yesterday.”

“You needn’t tell me I was hopeless.  I know it.  I’ll stay away from that station today, try something that I’m capable of learning.”  We had both tried out lots of stations yesterday, some separately, some together.  Sansa proved herself talented at tying knots.  It turns out I am pretty good at throwing a spear.

“Hold out your hand,” I say, she extends her hand towards me and I hold the knife out to her resting the hilt against her palm, she looks up at me in shock.  “Watching you at the knife station gave me an idea.”  I explain it to her.  How she doesn’t need to know those fancy moves that trainer was trying to teach her.  What she needs is the element of surprise.   I saw the other tributes watching her and deciding she has no skill with a knife, they’ll never expect her to use one.  I tell her that a knife is a good weapon to pull unexpectedly when you find yourself in close quarters with the enemy.  I show her the best places to conceal it on her person so she can access it, how to hold it properly, the best places to strike to cause maximum damage.  I tell her I don’t want anyone to see her holding a knife again unless it’s to cut her meat.  I tell her that we will meet up here after training every day so she can practice.

“But how will I even get a knife in the arena?” 

“I’ll get you one from the cornucopia.”

“I don’t know if I could attack someone-”

“The knife will be your defensive weapon.  It’s the only weapon we have easy access to - I borrowed that one from the sideboard in the dining area.”

“How do you know how to use a knife?  Weapons are banned in Twelve.”

“Yes, but eating utensils aren’t. My father taught me in secret, just like I’m going to teach you.”

* * * 

**_SANSA_ **

The days pass quickly.  Breakfast with Haymitch, Effie and Sandor.  Training.  Lunch with the other Tributes.  More training. Dinner with Haymitch, Effie and Sandor.  Evenings on the roof with Sandor.  We practice with whatever knife he has managed to borrow from the sideboard during dinner.  I can hold a knife properly now.  Sandor has shown me where the heart is, how to angle the knife so it doesn’t catch against the ribs.  He has shown me other places to cut, places that will incapacitate or do major damage.  One night he borrows only a bread knife and has me practice using it against him.

All too quickly it is the night before our one-on-one sessions with the Gamemakers. I ask him what he plans to show them.  He says he will display his skill with a bow, which he has kept hidden thus far.  I guess this is something else he learnt from his father even though I have never seen a bow or arrows in Twelve.  I have watched him in training so I know he must have all ready impressed the Gamemakers with his strength, and the way he has learnt to throw a spear. I don’t know what to show them, so I ask his opinion.

“Show them how fast and high you can climb,” he says.  “Your score doesn’t matter too much.  A higher score will help you get sponsors, but if you score low the other tributes won’t see you as a threat. That could be good for you.”

“But not for you?”

“It's too late for me, they all ready know I’m a threat.”

* * *

**_SANDOR_ **

Portia and Cinna join us for dinner the night the final training scores are due to be announced to the whole of Westeros.  Haymitch is drinking steadily and Effie is flapping around like a bird in a snare.  She keeps getting up from the table to check the time and turning the TV off and on to make sure it is working. No one is eating much.

Finally Effie decides it is time to gather in front of the giant TV screen and Sansa grips my hand tightly. Training is over.  Tomorrow we each have time with Haymitch, Effie, our stylists and prep teams to make sure we are ready for our interviews with Caesar Flickerman tomorrow night.  The day after tomorrow we will be in the arena.

The capital anthem plays.  They recap the reaping ceremonies and play a highlights package from the Tribute Parade.  Then some ‘experts’ talk about what goes on in the Training Centre and how the training scores are awarded.  Effie is squirming in her seat, Haymitch is drinking steadily, Cinna is tapping his foot while Portia fiddles with her hair.  Will we ever get to hear the actual scores?

Finally the announcement begins.  As usual they start with District One.  They boy Joffrey - the one who is always staring at Sansa - gets a 10; the girl Margaery -who approached me on the first day of training - gets an 8.  Clearly seduce and destroy is not her only strategy.  Their scores are no more than what's expected of them as Careers.  The boy and girl from Two get high scores too.  Cato 10; Clove 9. Then the scores plummet.  No one gets more than a 7 until Thresh the boy from Eleven is awarded a 9.  Thresh’s district partner, the girl Bran’s age with the scarred face gets a 3.  Tension in the room ratchets up when my face appears on the screen.

“Sandor Clegane, Eleven.” The room erupts.  Effie, Portia and Cinna are effusive in their excitement.  Sansa is positively glowing.  Haymitch even cracks a rare smile but I don’t dare look away from the screen for too long.  I want to see Sansa’s score.  Sansa Stark the Girl on Fire is awarded a 6. 


	8. The Capital - The Interview

_**SANSA** _

Finally, something I am good at.  I actually enjoy the morning I spend with Effie.  She dresses me up in a number of dresses: some long, some short, some loose fitting, others tight.

“Not even I know the style of dress Cinna has designed for you.  It’s a secret, no else has seen it apart from Portia,” she whispers excitedly.  “Whatever it is I want to make sure you can carry it off to perfection.”  Effie adjusts my posture, teaches me to walk in high heels and makes me smile until my cheeks hurt, while she asks me questions.  “You must walk and smile, talk and smile, breathe and smile.  Everything you do you must...”

“...do with a smile.”  I finish, with a smile and she beams at me. 

I spend time practicing walking with heels in each dress.  Effie makes all these sweet comments about natural poise and grace and tells me I am the best student she’s ever had. Finally she says there is nothing more she can teach me and we break early for lunch.

When we reach the dining room the food is waiting for us.  It’s strange how the silent servants -  Effie told me they are called Avoxes – always seem to know when we are ready to eat.  I help myself to all my favourites – I have favourites now after only a week.  Effie as usual takes a piece of fruit. 

“You're so pretty, if you just had some strength and skill you could get so many sponsors,” Effie says picking at her fruit.  I look up from my plate to stare at her. "Not that strength and skill is everything.  If Sandor was a little more attractive he could be swimming in sponsors."

“I know no one will sponsor me; but surely people will sponsor Sandor.  He’s the biggest and the strongest.”

“Oh, he’ll get a few sponsors for sure, but most sponsors – rich women especially - like to be wooed. And the boy's not attractive at all, he has absolutely zero social skills and a complete absence of charm. ” I open my mouth to argue.  Of course Sandor’s attractive – kind of – and...

“I know you’re fond of him Sansa, but he’s barely spoken to me; and he and Haymitch do nothing but snap at each other.”

“That’s not his fault! It's Haymitch who's snappy.  Haymitch snaps at everybody.  He snaps at me. Sandor can still win without sponsors right?”

“He has a chance. As long as he doesn’t get sick or injured.  As long as the arena has water and he can catch enough food to eat. But without sponsors if anything goes wrong he’s dead.”

“Who do you think will get the most sponsors?”

“The boy from One.”

“Joffrey?” I ask.  I’ve caught him staring at me a few times and he gives me the creeps.

“He’s handsome, charming and a trained killer.  He got a training score of ten.”

“His lips look like two fat worms curled up under his nose for a nap.”

“Some people find full lips attractive,” Effie remarks.  I can tell by the way she says it that she’s one of them.  I am obviously not.  I find myself thinking back to the night earlier this week when I was obsessed with Sandor’s lips. His lips could not be called full.

“I wonder when the boys will join us.” Effie is looking at the clock.  It is the past the time we were due to break for lunch.  Effie has finished her fruit and I am almost finished my more substantial meal.

“Should we wait for them?” I say taking my last bite.

“No, I don’t think so.  If you’ve finished you can wait for Haymitch in your room while I go see what’s keeping them.”  Effie says smoothly.

...

When Haymitch turns up in my room half an hour later his face looks like a thunder cloud and he reeks of alcohol.  I am kind of wishing he’d met with me first.  I don’t really know how to deal with drunk men.

“It went badly didn’t it?”

He glares at me.  “Ask him about himself he never gives an answer of more than one or two words.  And he can’t hide his contempt for the capital and everyone in it.  He’ll never get sponsors.”

“He’s still strong enough to win.”

“It’s a long shot without sponsors.  What if he gets hurt?  What if he needs something?”

“So have you given up or are you going to tutor me for my interview?”

“What’s the point sweetheart?  I like you and all but you told me early on you aren’t going to win.”

“No I’m not going to win, but I can still help him to win.  We have to make sure Caesar asks him about something he can talk about."

“Some _thing_ or some _one_?”

“I have such a good idea Haymitch.  You are going to love it.”

* * *

_**SANDOR** _

I am standing backstage with Haymitch and Effie as Sansa steps onto the stage for her interview.  She looks like a princess in that gown.  I don’t know what it’s made of but it sparkles in the light.  When she twirls for Caesar flames seem to lick the edges of the fabric and the audience gasps. 

“Sansa Stark, the girl on fire!” Caesar announces, his voice booming, a broad smile on his face.

“So Sansa,’ he says gesturing for her to sit in the seat next to him.  “Let’s talk about you.  It must have been shocking for you, standing on the stage at the Reaping when your younger brother's name was called.”

“It was Caesar.”

“How old is your brother?”

“Bran is Twelve.”

“You must be very grateful to Sandor Cleagne, your district partner for volunteering to take his place?”

“I am Caesar.”

“Why do you think he would do something like that?”

“I know why he did it,” Sansa lowers her voice. “Can I trust you with a secret Caesar?” Her voice is almost a whisper.  She is behaving as though she and Caesar are alone, as though all of Westeros is not watching.  Caesar looks enthralled by her. “He did it for me of course.  He’s in love with me.”

Haymitch takes one look at my face and bursts out laughing, Effie shoots me a mortified look before she tries to quiet him.

“He’s in love with you?”

“Yes. Well, we’re in love.  We planned to marry in two years, once I was no longer eligible for The Games.”

“That seems unusual given the err... the err ... disparity.”

“You mean the fact that he’s seam and I’m merchant class?”  That is not what Caesar means at all of course, but Sansa is all innocence. “We kept it secret because my family would not have approved.  My mother had already arranged my betrothal, you see.”

Is it possible that Sansa is using the seduce and destroy strategy against me?  The very strategy I told her about. Maybe Sansa is a survivor too; and we have all underestimated her. 


	9. Meanwhile back in District Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for taking time to read, comment and leave kudos on this work. I hope you enjoy this update. We are taking a break from the action in the Capital this week to check out what is going on with the Starks back in District Twelve...

**_ARYA_ **

Mom turns off the TV with a click and turns to look at me. 

“Arya is it true? Is what Sansa said true?”

I look at my mother warily.  Everyone in the room is staring at me and I don’t know what to say.  I have always been suspicious that Sandor had feelings for my sister but never that they were in any way reciprocated.

“Of course it’s not true Mom.  It’s a trick Sansa picked up from the girls from One.  You pick the biggest, strongest guy and string him along with smiles, kisses and sweet words until he takes out most of the competition and then you shank him in his sleep,” Robb says.

I can’t believe he just said that.  

“Fuck you Robb.  Just ‘cos that bitch Jeyne tricked you into marriage it doesn’t mean all women are skanks.  Sansa’s your sister damn it! Don’t you know her at all?” 

“Language Arya,” Mom reprimands me, and that just makes me angrier, that she criticises me and lets Robb’s comments go.  I look at Dad and when my eyes meet his I see sadness there.

“And Robb, dear,” Mom continues, “I can’t believe Sansa could be that calculating.  Ned,  look where your kindness to that boy has gotten us.  You give people like that an inch and they start getting ideas.  What am I going to say to Mrs Hardyng when I see her at Mellark’s tomorrow?”

“In case you’ve forgotten Cat, my kindness to that boy saved Bran’s life. And I don’t much care what you say to Mrs Hardyng.  No doubt she realised Sansa’s engagement to Harry was over the moment our daughter was reaped. And as for you Robb, go home to your wife and try to avoid slandering your sister to the district.  Whether what Sansa and Sandor told all of Westeros tonight is the truth or not; we back them one hundred per cent.  She’s our family, they’re both our tributes and I’m the mayor of this district.  Bran, Rickon I’m taking you up to bed.”  Bran and Rickon don’t even try to argue and Bran only pauses to give my hand a little squeeze as he follows Dad and Rickon out of the room.

“Now apologise to your brother Arya.  It was unkind to say that about Jeyne.”

“And what he said about Sansa wasn’t unkind?”

“Either your sister has been lying to us for years or she is lying now.  Whatever the truth is she has behaved inappropriately.”

“So tell me, what is the appropriate way to behave when you’re being sent into the arena to die? Maybe you could start teaching me now in case I get reaped next year.”

“Arya Stark!”

“I’m going to stay the night at Jon’s.”

“You are not walking to The Seam at this time of night.”

“Yes I am.” I storm out of the living room, grab my jacket from the hall and head out into the night.  I hope the walk will help me calm down but by the time I arrive at Jon and Ygritte’s little house I am angrier than ever.  Thankfully a light is still on.  I pound on the door and it is Ygritte who opens it.

“Arya, sweetling, come on in,” she says in the way she has of making everyone feel welcome. I see Jon behind her sitting on their broken down couch in front of the blank TV screen.

“Bet that didn’t go down well at home.” He says and for the first time in what feels like forever I laugh.  Ygritte gives Jon a smile and slips out of the room to leave us alone.

Jon is my brother and he grew up with me and our siblings, but though we share a father, my mother is not his.  His mother was a seam girl Dad planned to marry until his parents put a stop to it after Dad’s older brother died and forced him to marry his dead brother’s fiancé instead.  When Jon’s mother died giving birth to him Dad took him in and raised him alongside us, much to our mother’s disgust, but once Jon turned 18 and was considered an adult he moved back to The Seam.  Everyone except Mom still makes an effort to catch up with him, which isn’t easy when he is down in the mines six days a week.  Mom’s made it clear he’s no longer welcome at home, I don’t think she’s seen him since he left and she’s never met his pretty new wife.

“You gonna ask me if any of it’s true?” I ask him.

“Doesn’t matter much now does it?”

“It matters to Mom; and it’s going to matter to Mrs Harding apparently.”

“Well little sister, how does it feel to be next up to the plate in the Hardyng alliance. Will Catelyn’s plans for you succeed where her plans for Robb and Sansa have failed?”

“Robb should have married Roslyn Hardyng.  She would have been better than that bitch Jeyne. He said the most horrible things about Sansa.”

“Jeyne has ruined him.” Jon says sadly, agreeing with her.

“When I turn 18 can I move in with you and Ygritte?”

“You’re from town Arya.  If you live out here they’ll make you work in the mines. You’ll have to marry a miner.”

“At least I’ll get to pick my own husband.”

“You can still pick your own husband in town.  Dad won’t make you marry Harry or anyone else if you don’t want to.”

“Sansa didn’t want to marry him either.  She told me so.  She told Mom too but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Well she’s told the whole of Westeros now. If Sansa comes back to District 12 we all know she won’t be marrying Harry Hardyng.”

“Do you think she will?  Do you think she can? Come back I mean.”

“I think he’ll try his hardest to send her back home to us.”

Jon’s comment surprises me, but it shouldn’t, he’s always been the most perceptive of us all.

“You see it too?”

“Yes I see it.  I should have gone to say goodbye to him but I didn’t really know what to say and I didn’t want to miss my chance to see Sansa.  What did you say?”

“I told him he didn’t have to save her.  That it would be ok to save himself.”

Ygritte comes back out to join us then.  A pillow and blankets in her arms.

“Are you staying tonight sweetling?”

“I told Mom I was.”

“How did they take the interviews at home?” she asks.

“They were all pretty shocked I think. Mom most of all.”

“And how are you doing?”

“I don’t know Ygritte.  I wish I didn’t have to watch The Games. I don’t want to see them die.”

“No one does.  They are doing a collection down at the Hob - you know - for sponsorship money.  I’ve even heard people saying they like the way Haymitch is playing it this year, presenting the Tributes as a team, he’s never done that before.  The career districts do that every year, at least in the beginning. I can’t wait to hear what everyone’s saying tomorrow.  You want to skip school and come down to the Hob with me?”

“Yes please.  Then I can tell Dad all the district gossip.  I know those saps in the capital will eat up the love story.  You should see the sentimental crap we get on capital programming Ygritte.  All people sighing and staring into each others’ eyes and saying how they’d die for love.”

Jon gives me a sharp look and something finally clicks in my head.  The interviews tonight – whether Sansa and Sandor told all, or part, or none of the truth – could have been  part of a clever strategy playing on the ridiculous sensibilities of the Capital.  Sansa and Haymitch are both familiar with Capital programming, and this is a story that will get District 12’s Tributes sympathy and sponsors. 

They are both already memorable Sansa for her beauty and Sandor for being big and scarred, for being District 12’s first volunteer, and  for volunteering to save his fellow tribute’s brother.  The fiery costumes they wore in the parade also made an impact.  Now according to the post-interview recap  they have become the 'star-crossed lovers of District 12'. I wonder if anyone even remembers the names of the other 22 tributes after Sansa’s bombshell.  I hope no one does.


	10. The Capital - Post Interview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Sorry I didn't up-date last week as I was not well but I am back in action this week so here is more pots-interview fallout...

**_SANSA_ **

“Roof NOW.”  These are the first words Sandor says to me when we arrive back at the penthouse in The Tribute Centre.  The journey back in the car and then up in the lift has been characterized by a grim silence, one not even Effie attempted to break.  Now, Sandor grabs my wrist and tugs me towards the door that leads to the roof.  Usually it is me reaching for him, if I had my hand would be holding his now, instead of hanging loose in his grip.

Effie seems about to come after us but I shake my head at her. I know Sandor won’t hurt me.  His grip on my wrist is gentle, even if it doesn’t look like it.  I know he is strong enough to crush the bones in my wrist if he wanted to, but he won’t.

We are on the roof now and in other circumstances the night would be beautiful, there are some stars but not so many as there would be at home.  He releases my wrist and spins to face me just as the door to the roof closes with a soft thump behind me.

“What was that?” He snarls.

“A strategy to get us sponsors.”

“He put you up to it didn’t he?”

“Haymitch told me your interview was going to be an issue.  I know you hate talking about yourself so it was my idea to give you something to talk about.”

“You certainly did that.”

“Caesar loved it.  The audience did too, didn’t you see them?”

“You didn’t think it through Sansa.  Do you think your family loved it? What about Harry and the Hardyngs? Do you think they loved it?”

“What does it matter what they thought?  I was dead as soon as Effie called my name at the reaping. I’ll never see any of them again.  If Harry is pissed it’s just because he won’t be able to play the role of grieving fiancé when I’m dead but at least he’ll get a kick out of acting the betrayed fiancé in the meantime.  As if everyone doesn’t know he’s the father of Delly’s baby.”

“I didn’t think you knew about that.”

I tilt my head and give him a look, “I’m not stupid Sandor.”

“I know that.” He mumbles, avoiding my eyes.

“You’re not either.  You could win Sandor.  I know you could. You’re smart, you’re strong, you can wrestle, you can hunt.  I won’t mind dying so much if you win.  You’d have a good life in Twelve.  You wouldn’t have to go down the mines.  You’d have your own house in the Victor’s village.”

“Yeah.  I mean Haymitch has such a great life. I want to be just like him. I can’t wait to go back to a place where I have no living family; so I can live next door to him in the Victor’s village while he drinks himself to death.  Then I’ll have the sole privilege of taking two children to the Capital to die every year.”

“You make it sound so appealing.”

“You should be the one to go home, at least you have people to go back to.”

“Can you see me mentoring tributes?”

“You’d be kind to them, think up smart strategies to get them sponsors.”

“I can’t win Sandor.  Almost all the other tributes are stronger than me, the girls from One and Two could eat me for breakfast.  I have no fighting skills.”

“No but you have survival skills.  You know how to find water, what plants to use for food and medicine.  All you’d need to do is stay alive long enough to make it to the last two.  Then you would only have to kill one tribute.”

“Yeah, the tribute who’s likely to be the biggest, the strongest and the best fighter.  What chance would I have against them?”

“You just told me I could win The Games Sansa.  You plotted with Haymitch to reel in the sponsors.  If I can do what I need to in the arena, the only tribute you’d have to kill would be me.”

I am so shocked I can’t think of a thing to say.  Eventually I settle for something flippant.  I mean he has to be joking right? “And how would I do that?”

“I showed you where the heart is and how to angle the dagger to get past the ribs.”

“And you’d just let me do it?  You’d just stand there and let me stab you in the heart?”

“I’d probably have to lie down so you could get the angle right.”  He can’t be serious about this.  He can’t be. “I’d do it myself but I don’t think The Capital would like it if you won The Games without killing anybody. It’s a simple plan.  We work as a team during the Games, we eliminate everyone else, but one of us has to kill the other in the end.”

“You’re serious?  You want me to kill you?”

“Yes.” 

I can’t take my eyes off him, but he isn’t looking at me, he is staring down at his feet.  The two of us might be in some ridiculous Capital film, standing in evening dress in a roof top garden under the stars. I remember Sandor as a boy of ten fighting for his life on our kitchen table after he was burnt.

“You don’t owe me anything Sandor.  Anything you feel you owe my family, you paid that back when you saved Bran.”

“I didn’t.” His voice is a raspy whisper.

 I am confused.  Does he think he hasn’t paid his debt to my family?

“What?”

“I’m not some hero, okay?  I didn’t volunteer to save your brother.  I would have volunteered whoever had been chosen as the male tribute.”

“Why?”

“Because I volunteered to save you.”

 He finally looks up at me then and I don’t have to ask what he means, because I see it now.  I see it all and I curse myself for my blindness.  I curse myself for what I did earlier tonight. I curse Haymitch for encouraging me because he knew - he must have known -  that tonight in my effort to get us sponsors I gave away Sandor’s biggest secret to all of Westeros. His interview must have been agony for him. I had been so impressed with his ready answers to Caesar’s questions about our fake love story. It had never occurred to me his answers seemed so genuine because they were real.  I have been cruel, and it seems my cruelty isn’t over for the night because it is now that I kiss him.


	11. The Capital - Post Interview Part Two

**_SANDOR_ **

I’ve never kissed anyone, but whenever I’ve thought about kissing Sansa I always imagined it would be gentle and soft, like she is, but it’s not, it’s all teeth and tongue and need and want tangled up together. 

She tugs my face down to hers and I obey.  She winds her arms round my neck and twists her hands into the base of my ponytail and tugs upwards, so I wind my arms around her and lift her up so our mouths are on the same level and she winds her legs around my waist and presses her body close to me. 

I move one hand to squeeze her breast and she moans into my mouth and grinds against me. Before I can think I am hard as a rock and her skirt is hitched up round her waist.  The fabric of her underwear and my pants are the only barriers keeping us apart.

I almost thank the gods I don’t believe in because it seems they are going to give me the only thing I wanted in this life before I die.

 I’m not stupid enough to think it will be any good though.  It will be my first time and probably hers too.  She’ll probably regret it afterwards, or maybe when she is back at home in Twelve she’ll think fondly of this night, I don’t know.  I have no idea what I’m doing but it will be love; at least for me. After this I will have given her all of me.

 I barely know what I am whispering to her, something about loving her and giving myself to her when she twists away from me.  My imagination has clearly been working overtime.  Nothing is going to happen between us.  Her lips are no longer on mine, her legs are loosening around my hips and she taps my shoulder in a way that I know means ‘ _put me down’_.

 I set her down gently on the roof and she staggers away from me.  She looks back at me once, with wide eyes, before she crosses to the door and wrenches it open.  It closes slowly behind her but I can still hear the sound of her feet slapping against the steps as she runs down the stairs.

**_SANSA_ **

I slam my bedroom door behind me and throw my back against it, catching sight of myself in the mirror on the opposite wall, my dress and hair are in disarray, my face flushed and my lips swollen from kissing. 

 _Who am I?  Am I one of those girls from One who would seduce a boy into killing for me and giving his life for mine?_   No, Sandor had already told me his plan before we kissed.

 _Did he want me to have sex with him to in payment for his life?_   No, he never asked me for anything in return, but he wanted it, he wanted me. 

I recall the feeling of his erection rubbing against me through the thin fabric between us.  How there were moments when he touched my breast, when I felt his erection rubbing against the wet heat of my core that I wished there was no barrier between us, moments when I wanted to feel his skin against mine.  _Is it still seduction if I wanted him too? Is it still wrong to have sex before marriage if you aren’t going to live to be old enough to get married?_

I stop leaning against the door and stagger into the bathroom, my legs are still trembling slightly. I splash water on my face.  He told me that he loved me.  He told me he is planning to give his life for mine. 

I am glad I stopped it - that crazy kiss - if we had gone all the way tonight there is no way he could have let me die.

**_SANDOR_ **

When I venture down from the roof I find Haymitch sitting in the darkened lounge staring at the blank TV screen, a glass in his hand.

“Where’s the girl?” He asks.

“In her room I think.”

“Planning to check on that?”

“No.”

“Good call,” he says “Have a drink with me.”

“I’m not old enough.”

“If things go according to plan you’ll never be old enough, so you might as well have a drink with me now.”  He produces a bottle from somewhere and gestures to me to grab a glass from the sideboard.  I bring the glass over and hold it out to him and he splashes some liquid into the bottom. “Not too much.  I don’t want you hung over tomorrow.”  I swallow a mouthful and it burns.  He looks at me and I wonder if he is waiting for me to cough it up or something.  I take another mouthful instead. “I’m sorry I allowed the girl to lie, but she did it to get you sponsors.”

“Did it work?”

“Hell yes.  Effie’s still in the office, booking meetings for me tomorrow.”

“Just so you know those lies of yours make it harder for her to go home.  She just dumped her fiancé and lied to her parents in front of the whole of Westeros.”

“Doesn’t sound like the fiancé was much of a loss.  To hear her tell it he had his pecker out for every girl in the district.”

“Her mom wanted the match real bad.  Sansa’s brother Robb was supposed to marry Harry’s sister but he ended up running off with some other girl.  Her mom had to work real hard to get the Hardyngs to accept Sansa for their son instead.”

“Well I’ll sleep easier knowing I’ve destroyed the nefarious plans of Catelyn Tully Stark.  But if I were you, I’d be worrying less about Sansa’s parents and more about what’s going to happen in the arena.  If you think the Gamemakers are going to let your ‘little bird’ walk out of that arena as victor without killing anyone, you’re going to find yourself mistaken.”

“She’s not going to.  She’s going to kill me.  I’ve all ready shown her how to do it. The Careers will take out a fair few tributes.  I’ll take out the Careers and the rest.  Then when it’s down to just the two of us, she kills me.  You get your victor.”

“I’d better.  This trip to the Capital has been a lot less drinking and a lot more working than usual.  Next year I want someone to share the load.  And - just so you know - I don’t much care which of you comes back as long as one of you does.  So if something happens to the girl, if she wanders off and the Careers get her, you keep going ok.  You promised me Twelve would have a victor this year.” 


	12. On the way to the arena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who is reading this. I hope you enjoy the latest up-date. 
> 
> I do appreciate your comments and I do my best to respond to them but I may not always do so promptly.

**_SANDOR_ **

I don’t dare go to Sansa’s room the next morning.  I go straight to the dining table where Effie and Haymitch are all ready sitting.  Effie has her usual half a piece of fruit.  I’ve never even asked her what it’s called. Never even tasted one, they smell kind of sour.

“What’s it called?”  I asked.  Effie and Haymitch both look at me, raising their eyebrows.  I turn my gaze on Effie.  “You eat the same thing for breakfast every morning.  I just want to know what it’s called.”

“It’s a grapefruit.” I know what grapes looks like and it looks nothing like a grape.  It looks more like an orange but it’s yellow.

“You need to eat boy,” Haymitch says.  I look down at the bare table in front of me and realise I have forgotten to fill a plate.  I get up and go back to the sideboard.  “You should eat as much as you can; you don’t know when your next meal is going to be.  The hovercrafts will be here in an hour-and-a-half to take you all to the arena.  While you’re in the air I’ll be meeting with sponsors.  Then I’ll be back in Mentor Central in time for the jump off.” It occurs to me I didn’t ask about any of that.  I suppose I needed to know it though. I sit back down at the table and start eating.  Everything tastes like coal dust i.e. disgusting but it also reminds me of home.

When Sansa walks in I know without turning to look at her.  It’s like the temperature of the room moves from comfortable to scorching.  I can hear her at the sideboard filling a plate.  I wonder where she will sit when she comes to the table - if she will sit beside me as she usually does, or as far away as possible.  I am somewhat surprised when she sits beside me. 

“Effie,” Haymitch clears his throat, “I suddenly remembered that I need to speak with you.  In private.” Effie sighs, I know she sees through Haymitch’s ploy, but she goes off with him anyway.

“I’m sorry-” Sansa and I both say the words at the same time.  I’m staring at my plate, I can’t see what Sansa is doing so it comes as a shock when I feel her hand on my cheek and she turns my head until I am facing her.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what for?” she asks.

I’m not sure I want to know.  Luckily (or unluckily) she doesn’t wait for me to answer.

“I’m sorry for taking advantage of you.”  _She’s_ sorry for taking advantage of _me_!  I was the one who took her kiss and ran with it, eager for everything she had to give.  If she knew how far I was willing to go last night she wouldn’t be apologising to me now.

“You’re not sorry for lying on TV then?”

“No.  Not sorry for that.  Did it work?”

“Haymitch says yes.”

“Then it was worth it.  Sandor, you do realise that we’ll have to keep up the show in the arena?  The viewers have to believe we’re in love.  We’re looking at more hand holding and maybe even more kissing but ... but... we can’t get carried away like we did last night, not in front of my parents. I’ve brought them enough scandal and I want them to be willing to speak to you when you go home.”

“Sansa-”

“I agree with parts of your plan and I’ll follow it up to a point.  Until we’re the only two tributes left, if we make it that far.”

* * *

**_SANSA_**  


I sit in the belly of the hovercraft.  They are sending all the female tributes out to the arena together.  We are all dressed the same: boots, trousers, shirt, and jacket.  The only difference between us takes the form of the district numbers embroidered on the backs of our shirts, and on the backs and both sleeves of our jackets. 

I am trying to soothe my nerves and make sure I don’t forget anything by repeating Haymitch’s final instructions in my head.  “ _Stay in your metal circle until the bell rings.  If you move from your circle before that you’ll be blown to bits.  Stay away from the cornucopia; it’ll be a blood bath.”_   I repeat Sandor’s last instruction for good measure: “ _as soon as the bell rings turn to your left and run for the closest cover, I’ll find you after.”_ He clearly plans to be part of the bloodbath at the cornucopia; of course he will need to be if we are to have weapons and food.

The little girl Bran’s age from District Eleven is sitting next to me.  I try to recall her name, and finally remember that it’s Shireen.  She looks so tiny; she seems even smaller than Rickon today.  I notice her hands are shaking and I reach out to take the hand nearest me into one of mine.  She gives me a grateful look but I see the Careers – the girls from One and Two - rolling their eyes at my friendly gesture.  Magarey, the girl from One has hated me since the first day of training when I stopped her putting her moves on Sandor and the girl from Two, Clove seems to hate everyone, though she makes some allowances for Magarey and the boy from her own District.

Twelve teenage girls in a big room in the belly of a hovercraft and it’s eerily silent.  Get twelve teenage girls in a room at home and we’d be talking about boys, complaining about our mothers and/or our sisters and braiding each other’s hair. 

A woman in a nurse’s uniform comes to each of us in turn to inject a tracker into our arm.  This is so the Gamemakers will know where we are every moment once we are in the arena.  I have to let go of Shireen’s hand so the nurse can give her the injection, and I confess I am a little surprised when she snakes her hand back into mine afterwards.  But it costs me nothing to give her this last bit of comfort, and the feel of her rough little hand in mine gives me a weird kind of comfort too. 

It reminds me what it is like to be a big sister. I remember Arya holding my hand as we walked to school when we were younger. I remember holding Bran’s hand and Rickon’s.  This makes me think of how Robb or Jon would hold my hand to keep me safe when I was smaller. In fact sometimes when we walked to school Robb would hold one of my hands and Jon the other and they would swing me between them until they tired of the game.  I find myself hoping that they’ll all have long, happy lives.  That Arya, Bran and Rickon will never be reaped. That my parents will live into old age surrounded by their children and grandchildren.  I’m sorry I won’t be there to see it _. But you could be_ , says a little voice inside my head, _you could be.  He wants to give his life for you. He loves you.  You wouldn’t have to do much, just a little stab.  He even showed you how.  If you kissed him like you did last night he probably wouldn’t even feel it._   I resolve to rename this little voice ‘small evil voice.’ I will not listen to it. I will not. 


	13. The beginning of the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading.
> 
> This chapter takes place in District Twelve as Arya prepares to watch the televised beginning of the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

I don't want to think about what is about to happen.  I try to distract myself by recounting stories of my visit to the Hob with Ygritte earlier today.

“And then he said ‘How’s my goat?’” I look at Jon expectantly.  He looks tired after a day in the mines and there is coal dust in his beard.

“So that’s where father got Lady?” Jon says.  He is pushing what little food there is around on his plate.  I remember helping Ygritte make dinner and wondering how such a small amount of food was supposed to feed three of us, so it’s just as well Jon and I aren’t eating.  Next time I come to visit I am bringing food with me.

“As if Dad would set foot in the Hob?  He got the goat man to come to his office.” I continue, but Jon’s next question proves he hasn’t been distracted by my pitiful attempt at small talk.

“You sure you don’t want to go home for this?” he asks.

“No.  I want to watch with you.”  The Games are mandatory viewing, everyone has to watch.

“I’m really sorry, if I’d known Arya’d be here I wouldn’t have done it, but I asked Gen to come and watch here so he wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the square.” The words come spilling out of Ygritte.  “I can go tell him no.  He still has plenty of time to get to the square.”

“Who’s Gen?” I ask.

“Our new neighbour.”  Jon says.  “He hasn’t got a TV.  He knows Sandor, from The Home.” If he’s from The Home - and a new neighbour with no TV - it’s likely he’s just past reaping age and has now graduated from district care to working in the mines.  I wonder if having a stranger here will make this better or worse.

“It’s ok.  He can come.  Just don’t expect me to entertain him.”

“I doubt he’s expecting to be entertained.” I realize all three of us are staring across the room at the blank TV screen, soon it will click on and it will be the beginning of the end.

“You won’t tell anyone if I close my eyes will you?” I ask.

“As far as I’m concerned you can both close your eyes,” Ygritte says. “Neither of you should have to watch.”

* * *

We are all even more on edge by the time the TV clicks on.  Jon and I are already sitting on the couch.  Gen - whose actual name turns out to be Gendry - has pulled over a chair from the kitchen table to sit on, as there is not enough room on the couch for four people.

The capital anthem plays – did it always give me chills?  Or is that new this year?  Ygritte comes to sit on the other side of Jon and he reaches out to take Ygritte’s hand in one of his at the same time as he takes mine in the other.

Of course the commentators feel obliged to recap the training scores first, and then replay highlights from last night’s interviews.  Sansa’s and Sandor’s interviews are almost replayed in their entirety.  The commentators refer to them both as ‘the star-crossed lovers of District Twelve.’

Gen shifts uncomfortably in his seat and Jon stares up at the ceiling.  There’s probably not a brother in the world who feels comfortable with the idea of his teenage sister having a ‘lover’ but I don’t know why Gen is so uncomfortable.  Maybe he was one of the dozens of boys at school with a crush on my sister.

I tug on Jon’s hand because it’s now that they finally show us the first shots of the arena.  The cornucopia is there, right in the centre of a clear space.  It is laden with weapons and food as usual and surrounded by twenty-four empty circles, just waiting for tributes to fill them.  I am suddenly very interested in the rest of the arena. I can see woods, a lake and some kind of grassland. That’s it.  At least they’ll have water and somewhere to hide.

Suddenly we are back in the studio again for an examination of ‘the odds.’  Yes, people in the Capital are actually betting on whether my sister will live or die.  Her odds are long, so very few people are betting on her to live.  Sandor’s odds are good – he is third, behind the boys from One and Two because ‘training counts’ as one of the commentators puts it. Another agrees saying that ‘training will beat brute force every time.’

“Gods, this must be fucking awful for you. I’m so sorry.  I shouldn’t be here.” Gen shifts in his chair again and it irritates me like a burr against my skin.

“You honestly think you being here could make it any worse?” I ask him sharply. 

“No.  No, I guess not.”

“Then sit still and let us watch.”  It’s odd.  I’ve gone from thinking I couldn’t watch to not being able to take my eyes off the screen.

The TV coverage flicks back to the arena.  The twenty-four circles are all filled now.  It’s a long-shot but I can pick Sandor out easily.  He’s the tallest and broadest tribute so he’s hard to miss. I look for Sansa.  _Where is she?  Where is my sister?_ At that moment I see a flash of red, the sunlight reflecting off her hair. She is dressed the same as everyone else, expect for the ‘12’ on her clothing.  She is standing with her back to the woods.  I wonder what she is thinking.  What will she do when the bell rings?

Now the camera is doing close-up shots of each tribute, in District order: boy from One, girl from One.  On and on it goes.  It sucks being from District Twelve, we’re always last. Finally Sandor’s burnt face and clenched jaw fill the screen.  His grey eyes seem focused, intense.  If he knows the camera’s on him he’s not giving us the satisfaction of letting us know. Then the camera is on Sansa.  Her face fills the screen. I’d forgotten how pretty she is.  It’s a stupid thing to think, I know.  I mean she was prettier last night all glammed up for her interview, but last night she didn’t look like herself.  Today she does: no Capital make up, no fancy hair-style.  She’s just Sansa, her hair plaited back into a braid like it was most days for school. Tears are prickling in my eyes and starting to trickle down my face when Sansa’s beautiful face vanishes from the screen.

Jon is squeezing my right hand tightly and something is brushing my left forearm where it rests against the edge of the couch.  I look up to see Gen patting my forearm with his hand, once, twice, three times.  I suppose he is trying to be comforting, even if it seems a little odd.

It’s then that the countdown begins. It’s just digits on the screen at first 00:01:00.  Then its 00:00:59.  Then before I know it Claudius Templesmith’s voice is saying: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.


	14. In the Games - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. We're in the arena. This chapter has a slight overlap with the last one.

**_SANSA_ **

I stand in my circle and scan the other tributes looking for Sandor.  Lucky he is so tall and broad, it makes him impossible to miss.  When we make eye contact he gives me a slight nod. I wonder what it will be like to be alone with him in the arena after last night.  Are we just going to ignore what happened? It’s not like we can really talk about it with the whole of Westeros watching our every move.

I look away from him, trying not to glance over my shoulder in case I give away the direction I will be running in once the bell goes.  Instead I take the time to study my fellow tributes.  The boy from Two is bouncing on the balls of his feet as though he is eager to get started.  The boy from One is staring at me with a bored look on his face.  When he catches me looking at him he stretches his puffy lips into a smile and I look away. Little Shireen looks even smaller than she did inside the hovercraft ... it is as though she is shrinking before my eyes, dwindling away into nothing.  I can’t look anymore, so I turn my attention to the cornucopia.  The sunlight glints off the metal weapons stacked inside its mouth: spears, swords, shields. The reflected light enables me to make out bows, quivers of arrows, and canvas covered lumps - perhaps sleeping bags, tents or backpacks – further inside the shadowy cornucopia.  There will be food there too in some of those bags, and water.  I bet the game-makers placed the weapons where they would reflect the light to tempt us. 

As an added incentive to draw us in there are items strewn about the empty space between us and the mouth of the cornucopia too.  I see a small backpack near me.  Surely I’ll have a chance to grab it before I turn and run for the woods behind me.  I am quick on my feet and it is closer to me than it is to anyone else.

That’s when Claudius Templesmith’s voice breaks the silence.  He has been announcing The Games for as long as I can remember.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Then the bell rings and it’s chaos.  Everyone is running and shouting.  I run for the bag, grab hold of it and am heading for the woods when I hear a scream. 

I look back over my shoulder and some idiot girl has grabbed Shireen.  This girl has no weapons and -like us - she is from one of the out-lying districts, maybe Ten.  She’s clearly seeking an early kill in some doomed and desperate attempt to attract sponsors and has gone for the easiest target.  She has her back to me, facing Shireen.  All the other tributes have either taken off or are involved in the battle for weapons and supplies that has broken out around the cornucopia.  No one is paying any attention to Shireen and this girl.  The careers will leave them to it, whoever wins is still an easy target for them to pick off later. 

I run back, and when I am close enough I swing my newly-claimed backpack by one of the shoulder straps and it connects with the other girl’s head making a cracking sound.  Yikes! There must be something solid in there.

“Come on Shireen!  We have to run!”

The other girl is stumbling around dazed, so I grab Shireen’s arm and pull her with me in the direction of the woods. She stumbles at first and then she is running as quickly as I am.  Finally we reach the shelter of the trees and I pause a moment to check that no one is following us.  Everyone left is involved in the fighting around the cornucopia.  I turn back to Shireen.

“Are you ok?”

She nods.  “Why did you do that?  Why did you come back for me?”

“Because I’m a big sister.” I say, and as soon as the words have left my mouth I realize they’re not an explanation at all, but Shireen nods again, as though she understands. 

“Thank you.  So what now?”

“We can stay together if you want? I’m not going to kill you.”

“What about him? I mean the two of you are going to meet up right?” I figure the whole audience has likely guessed as much so it will do no harm to confirm it.

“Yes, we’re going to meet up, but you needn’t be afraid of Sandor.  He won’t kill you either.” _Not unless we all make it into the last three_ , small evil voice adds inside my head.  “You should take off if it looks like we’re going to be the last three though.” I tell Shireen. _Huh take that small evil voice!_ Maybe I am going to be one of those tributes who go mad in the arena ...  after all I am already arguing with myself.  “If you’re coming we need to get moving.”  I say and lead the way into the woods.  I hear Shireen’s light footsteps stirring up the leaf litter as she follows.

* * *

**_SANDOR_ **

_So much blood_.  I stop beside a stream to wash it off my hands and face.  I don’t want Sansa to see me like this.  _So much blood. Don’t think about it.  Don’t think about it. I’ve killed animals before, to help feed us, all of us kids in The Home but never people.  Never, that is, until today._

I have the weapons I need though.  A bow, a quiver of arrows, a spear, a sword, three daggers and a couple of backpacks containing the gods know what.  It’s not like I had time to look inside them. 

_The boys from One and Two laughed as they swung their swords. Their laughter echoing off the metal walls of the cornucopia. Disembodied. Ghoulish. And I am just like them. If someone got in my way I cut them down until they were out of it.  But I didn’t laugh. And I got away from them._

By the time I stand up again there is no blood on my hands.  I hope it is gone from my face too and I am thankful that our dark uniforms do not show the splatters that landed elsewhere. 

I was careful to enter the wood at a different spot to where Sansa was supposed to, planning to work my way round to her entry point under the cover of the trees before following her path.  It’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with the plan.

I hope Haymitch and our sponsors were impressed by what they just saw.   _Everything I do is to keep Sansa alive. That’s all that matters._

I figure now’s as good a time as any to have a quick look in the backpacks.  I hope one of them has something to hold water.  If it does I can fill it up in the stream.  The girl from Two must have been hurling her throwing knives at me as I ran away with my supplies because there are two knives embedded in one pack, and one in another.  Both packs contain a lightweight sleeping bag, an empty water bottle, a pack of iodine tablets to treat the water, a small first aid kit, a rain poncho, a length of rope, a pair of sunglasses and five energy bars.  I fill both bottles with water and treat it with the iodine.  They will be ready to drink in half-an-hour, so I place them back in the packs and start off to find Sansa.

That’s when the canon goes off for the first time.  The game-makers use the canon to announce every kill but they always wait till the chaos at the cornucopia has died down so they can make an accurate tally of the dead before they fire.  I stand still and count every shot.  Eleven.  Eleven dead and that’s in the first hour of the first day.  How many of those eleven were mine? The game-makers always keep a record of your kill statistics.  When Sansa wins The Games she will be interviewed by Caesar Flickerman again and he will show her every tribute’s kill stats. She will see mine.  What will she think of me when she knows how many people I had to kill to keep her alive?  Will she be grateful to me?  Or grateful I’m dead? 

* * *

**_SANSA_ **

“So what’s it like?” Shireen whispers.  After  walking for what feels like hours, I've decided we'll stop here and wait for Sandor.  The sun is low in the sky and Shireen and I have climbed a tree for safety.

“What’s _what_ like?” I ask her.

“Being in love. I always used to dream of falling in love but it’s not going to happen now. Not that it was ever very likely,” Shireen says running her hand over her scarred cheek.

I say the first thing that pops into my head.  “It’s not like you’d expect.”

Shireen gestures for me to continue, so I suck in a breath and resolve to do my best.  The audience is watching after all.  “You’d think it would be wonderful but it’s not.  It’s confusing mostly.  You have to make hard choices.  Choices that hurt people.  Choices that change you.  Sometimes even though it hurts to be together, it hurts to be apart even more.” I find my mind drifting to the events of the previous night, the feeling of being in Sandor’s arms, of being kissed by him, of there being no space left for light or air between our bodies. “And then there are moments...” I feel the heat rushing to my face and Shireen looks at me with wide eyes.  “There are moments when all the confusion and the pain just melt away and you forget about everyone and everything else, you even forget yourself.”

“This is going to sound awful, especially coming from me, but what about his face?  That’s what Caesar was getting at last night you know, when he was talking about the disparity.”

“I knew what he was getting at; I just chose not to stoop to his level.  I understand why you would ask Shireen,” I say reaching out to touch her scarred cheek.  “That’s why I’m going to answer your question.  Sandor’s face isn’t an issue between us.  You don’t love someone for their face, you love them for who they are. Whoever told you that you wouldn’t find love because of your face was wrong.  Love isn’t about faces.  The only reason you’ll miss out on love is because you were reaped for The Games.  Very few people have fallen in love at the age of twelve.”

“How old were you when you fell in love with Sandor?”

This conversation just keeps getting harder. I take another breath and think about our sponsors watching this.  All those Capital viewers drawn in by our love story.

“Honestly?  I’m not sure.  We’d known each other a long time.  We were sort of friends.  My feelings for him kind of grew, I didn’t even realize at first.”

“My mentor thought it was a ploy to get sponsors but I knew it wasn’t.  I just knew it. I mean I saw you guys together in the Training Centre.”  Shireen’s voice sounds excited to my ears even as my heart sinks. I hope I sound convincing when I reassure her that she was right to believe in us.


	15. The Arena - Day Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading everyone. Hope you enjoy the up-date.

**_SANSA_ **

I wake to feel a hand covering my mouth.

“It’s ok, don’t scream,” a small voice whispers in my ear.  Shireen.  My heart rate slows as I start to relax.  Shireen’s breath fogs in the cold air and I am grateful for the sleeping bag we share, and for the rope that ties us to this branch. Both were inside my backpack and they enabled me to sleep while Shireen took the first watch.

 “Is it Sandor?”  I whisper, taking my cue from her, and keeping my voice low.

“No way he’d be that stupid,” she says gesturing to a bright spot in the trees.  As I look at where she’s pointing I see an orange light, smoke grey against the black sky and hear the crackle of flames.  She’s right Sandor would never light a fire, and not just because it’s monumentally stupid.

“Who is it?”

“I never saw.  Whoever it is they’re calling every surviving tribute to this location.”

“Do you think we should move?”  If we move Sandor may never find us.

“I think we’re safer up here than blundering around down there in the dark.  Who knows who we might run into?”

“Ok.  We’ll stay here.  You should get some sleep now.  Let me watch for awhile.”

“Not till after. That’s why I woke you.  I didn’t want you to be startled awake when someone comes to finish the fire-starter.” I swallow for a moment.  I wonder if one of us should go over there and get whoever it is to put the fire out but what if it’s the Career’s setting a trap.  Or someone who would kill us before we got a chance to explain what a bad idea it is to light a fire at night in the arena.

“Don’t other mentors tell their tributes not to do this sort of thing?” I whisper.  “Haymitch told us not to light a fire at all if we could avoid it and never to light one with green wood or at night.”

“My mentor told me the same, but it’s pretty cold out.”  Shireen says snuggling deeper into our shared sleeping bag.

That’s when we hear a scream come from the direction of the fire, followed by the brief sound of a struggle, then laughter.  The Careers.

“No use struggling, we’ve got you now.” It’s the girl from Two. Clove.

“Stupid fucking bitch tried to bite me!” The boy from One.  What’s his name?  Mr Wormy-lips?  No, Joffrey.

“Then hurry up and finish it.”  His district partner.  Margaery.

“I was hoping to get a bit of practice in with this knife first.  I could carve some pretty patterns into her flesh for you love.” 

“Just get the job done, and make eyes at your girlfriend later.” It’s the other boy.  Cato.

“Ok, ok.” The cannon goes off.  Another tribute is dead.  The Careers make a lot of noise, horsing around as they put out the fire. 

Then their voices get even louder.  Instead of going back the way they came they’re coming towards us.  They’re going to pass right under our tree. I feel Shireen take my hand inside our sleeping bag and we both hold as still as we can.  I’m too scared to breathe.

“Where do you think they are?” Cato asks. He’s standing right below us.

“Who?” Clove asks.

“The two lovers.”

“About ten steps ahead of us.”

“Not those idiots.  If they think anyone’s going to fall for their dog and pony show they’re even stupider than they look.”

“They’re our allies.”

“Only until they’re not. I meant the favourite and his cunt.”

“Who cares if he got the highest training score Cato?  Let it go already.  He might be big but he’s got no real training and he’s ugly as sin.  The Capital doesn’t want a victor like that.”

“No they want one like that little psychopath Joffrey.”

“District One always has the best looking tributes but District Two always has the best fighters.  That’s us. You’ll win or I will. We came to the Capital knowing that. I mean District Twelve? They haven’t got a hope.  When was the last time they won anyway?”

“Twenty-four years ago.”

“Exactly.  They might have put on a bit of a show this time but that’s all it was. Now let’s go catch up with our allies. Who’ve either been using this time to make out or to plot against us – care to make a bet as to which?”

* * *

**_SANDOR_ **

By the time night fell I had found myself a hollow to rest in.  I figured it wasn’t too sensible to run around in the woods at night.  So I wrapped myself in a sleeping bag and watched the display of The Fallen the Capital projects into the sky every evening.  No one from District One or Two was on it.  So the Career pack is still at full strength.  I couldn’t look away from the faces of the eleven dead tributes as I waited to see if the number 12 would appear – if my last sight of Sansa would be her picture in the sky ... but she wasn’t there.  So I started my night’s watch secure in the knowledge that she was alive, but I take my first steps this morning in doubt.  I think I dozed off a few times during the night but I definitely heard the cannon fire twice. One of them could have been for her.  I might never find her.  She could already be dead.  

During the course of the night I was aware of bodies moving through the woods close to where I rested.  The Careers out hunting. Day Two and we are all ready past the half-way point.  When I stopped last night we were 13 alive, 11 dead.  This morning it’s 11 alive - 13 dead.

* * *

**_SANSA_ **

Dawn broke several hours ago and we should be on the move but Shireen is still asleep next to me.  I have delayed waking her. 

I can’t stop thinking about that second cannon.  The Careers must have come across someone on their way through the woods after they left us last night.  What if he doesn’t come?  What if he never comes?  I will have to spend the whole day not knowing and tonight when night falls I will watch the sky and pray to the gods that I won’t see his face projected there.

Then I hear it.  The sound of someone approaching.  The birds and insects fall silent.  Then it’s the sound of leaves rustling under foot.  I wonder if I should wake Shireen now just in case she wakes suddenly and gives us away. I put my hand over her mouth as she did to me last night and her eyes dart open.  I make a shushing noise and gesture in the direction of our visitor with my eyes.  Shireen sits up.  My heart is beating fast but not in fear this time but in anticipation.  _Please, please, please._ I close my eyes, too afraid to look. I squeeze them shut even tighter.  I am not sure if I am making a wish or praying, maybe it’s a little of both.

Shireen’s little hand grips hold of my shoulder.  “You can open your eyes now,” she says, “it’s him.” My eyes snap open and I see him.  My hands tear at the rope tying us to the branch and Shireen comes to my aid, helping me to undo the knot.  Then I am unzipping the sleeping bag and climbing down the tree.

“Sandor. Sandor.” I call and I see his head whip around until finally he looks up and sees me.  I forget about all the viewers as I scramble down the last few branches and throw myself into his arms.  I was a fool to think our reunion would be awkward.  How could it be awkward when I have been fearing him dead for hours and hours? 

He holds me tight and it feels so good.  I think nothing could make it better and then he whispers “Little bird,” into my hair and I want to kiss him so badly I think I’ll explode if I don’t. I tilt my head up and pull his down and I kiss his cheek and then his lips and then his other cheek and then his lips again.

“I was afraid you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“It’s ok.  I’m not dead.  You’re not dead.” He takes a step back to look at me and I have to fight myself not to follow him. Then his eyes seem to fix on something behind me, and his body tenses.

“Sansa,” he says and I can hear the question in his voice “did you know there was someone in that tree with you?”

“Of course I did.  Don’t worry it’s just Shireen. She’s a friend.”


	16. The Arena - Day Two continued and an interlude from District 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading as always. I hope you enjoy the latest chapter.
> 
> I have done something a little different this chapter. The first half is Sansa in the Arena and the second half is Arya in District 12.

**_SANSA_ **

“Hey.” Shireen says in the smallest voice I have yet heard from her.

“Hey Shireen, this is Sandor.  Sandor this is Shireen.” I perform the appropriate introductions.

“Hello Shireen.  Sansa, do you think we might talk for a minute?”  Sandor is giving me one of his fierce looks.  Gods damn it has he forgotten we’re supposed to be in love? But then I suppose people in love are allowed to quarrel every now and then.

“I’ll go see if I can spot the careers,” Shireen says in an obvious attempt to make herself scarce so Sandor and I can have a private conversation.

“No Shireen that sounds dangerous.”

“Not for me.  I can fly through the treetops.  It’s my talent.  The one I showed the game-makers.  I’ll see the careers but they’ll never look for me so far above their heads.”

“Let’s see it, then.” Sandor demands, crossing his arms over his chest. I am about to protest but Shireen just leaps into the tree and soon enough she has disappeared in the foliage.

“Shireen, where are you?” I call and a small hand appears from near the top of the tree and waves at us.

“Well I doubt they’ll see her if she can climb that high, assuming she manages to find them at all.” Sandor uncrosses his arms and looks straight at me. “Sansa, what were you thinking?”

“She was in trouble and I helped her.”

“Sansa, do you want me to have to kill that little girl?”

“Of course not.  I told her you wouldn’t.”

“Without even asking me?  Thanks for that.  Sansa, you can’t save her.  I can’t save her.  I can only save one person and that’s going to be you. If you’re even thinking about giving your life for that little girl you can stop now because I will not let you.”

“I’m not thinking that.  I just didn’t want to leave her to die.”

“So what’s your plan?  We feed her, we take care of her and then I kill her.”

“No.  She’ll be our ally until it becomes impossible.  I’ve already told her to take off if it looks like we’ll be the last three.”

“So then I’ll have to hunt her down and kill her.”

“Exactly, it’ll be fair.”

“Will it? Because it doesn’t sound fair to me. Someone my size hunting down a little girl.”

“It’ll be as fair as things get in the Games.”

* * *

**_ARYA_ **

I told Jon and Ygritte I’d go home after school today but when it came down to it, I just couldn’t.  So I went home at lunchtime instead.  The house was empty as I expected so I grabbed a snack from the kitchen and some money from Mom’s secret hiding place.  Then I went back to school and finished the day.  After school I went straight to The Hob in search of food to take to Jon and Ygritte’s. I buy a rabbit – it’s already been gutted and skinned so it shouldn’t be too hard to cook = and some rough bread.

But when I finally get to Jon and Ygritte’s their house is locked up tight.

“They’re both still at work.”  The voice is coming from the other side of a low fence. I walk over to it and glance over to see Gendry lying on his back in the grass outside what must be his cottage.

“Why aren’t you?” I ask, curiously.  I don’t know much of what goes on down the mines. 

“Three reasons.  I’m from the Home; I’m new down the mines; and I’m not married.  We get the worst shifts.  The late nights.  The early mornings.  The young marrieds get the best shifts.  The powers that be want them snug in their beds at night making new labourers for the mines and new tributes for The Games.”

“They’re called children.”

“Are they?”

“Yes.  People have children because they want them.”  I say, but my voice comes out uncertain. I can’t say I’ve thought about this much.

“Do they?  Did you know that in the Capital they have things you can use to stop a woman getting pregnant?  They call them contraception.  But we don’t get them here – do we? Because they want us to breed.  They want us to marry as soon as we’re no longer eligible for the reaping and then they want us to have as many children as we can. Children we can’t even feed.”

“Don’t you want to have children?”

“No. I’m never having kids.”* His assertion surprises me and I wonder why he’s having this conversation with me.  I’m fourteen and his neighbour’s sister. 

“So you’re planning to spend your life alone in that cottage, working the worst shifts down the mines.”

“That about sums it up, until I die in a mining accident.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?  Lying down in the grass practicing for when you’re dead?” After-all he hasn’t moved since I got here.  He hasn’t even glanced at me.

“No.  I’m looking at the sky.  It’s what I miss most being down the mines.  It’s not only that you can’t see the sky.  It’s that there’s so much between you and the sky.  It’s like being buried alive.”

“So when you’re down the mines that’s when you’re practicing for being dead? I ask.”

“Yeah.  I know that one day I’ll go down there and I won’t come back up again just like my father before me, and his father before him.”

“What do you think it’s like?  Being dead?”

“She’s not dead yet, you know, your sister.  But I imagine it’s kind of peaceful.  No more hunger, no more coal dust.”

“I tilt my head back to look up at the sky.”

“You’ll do your neck in doing that.  You’ve got to lie down in the grass on your back and really soak it in.” He must be able to see me from the corner of his eye or something.

“The grass looks kind of damp.” I say exactly what I’m thinking.

“Go into my place then and get a blanket to put down on the ground first.”

I step over the low fence and cross the grass to his cottage.  It’s kind of empty.  Nothing but a chair and a table in the front room and a bed in the second room.  I pull a blanket off the bed and carry it outside.  I fold it in half and spread it out over a patch of grass before I lie down on top of it. 

“So what’s so great about the sky?” I ask.

“It’s big and it’s blue.”

“Your eyes are almost the same shade of blue.” _Where did that come from?_

He laughs “I’m flattered the mayor’s daughter even noticed the colour of my eyes.”

“Well they are very blue.  Even bluer than my sister’s and she has the prettiest eyes.”  I am glad when he chooses to ignore this comment and starts talking about the sky again.

“You know it’s the same sky everywhere.  In every district, in the Capital, wherever your sister is now it’s the same sky.”

“Gendry, are you a ... an insurgent?  I won’t tell anyone if you are.”

“There are no insurgents in Twelve Arya.  Just a lot of people waiting to die of hunger, or in the mines, or to watch their children die in the Games.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Katniss makes a very similar comment to this in the original Hunger Games novel.


End file.
